I'm better than you think. I'm even better than I think I am.

Once a year, she remembers that she is insignificant. Then she forgets agains, because more than she is insignificant, she is forgetful.

I am a freak in secondhand velour, a leper who uses L'Oreal Anti-sticky Mega Gel. I am rootless, ripped from all foundations, an orphan raising an orphan and wanting to take away everything there is and replace it with stuff I've made.

The key thing is managed awareness of your role in the world and history. Think too much and you know you are nothing. Think just enough and you know you are small, but important to some. That's the best you can do.

She felt some measure of relief knowing that in the very least, on the open road she would have some time to think.

I always like the idea of doing interviews with somebody but completely seriously not ever mentioning what that person is generally known for.

I'm never a fan of the sociopathic kind of reviewing, people who are sort of self-immolating and have social problems or whatever, and let it out in literary-criticism form. I just feel like book reviewing should be respectful and calm and not filled with bile.