It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.

This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn't engage anybody.

Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.

She took a sort of abject pride in her mecilessness toward herself.

Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.