One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said -- the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival.

Paradise is only for those who have already been there.

We were born to die; we were born to endure, on the way to death, sorrow-sorrow in manifold shapes.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

The art of fiction is freedom of will for your characters.

Real apprenticeship is ultimately always to the self.

I measure my life in sentences pressed out, line by line, like the lustrous ooze on the underside of the snail, the snail's secret open seam, its wound, leaking attar.