We're all simultaneously separated and connected by our devices, staring into our little screens, and also hungry for experience and community.

When I was starting out there was no Internet, there wasn't this sense that you could be connected to other writers around the world. And that created a kind of innocence, or parochial quality, even in NYC.

The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations.

In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.

Everything I know about life I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write.

My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful.

When I sit down with my notebook, when I start scribbling words across the page, I find out what I’m feeling.