Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand.

But romantic vision can also lead one away from certain very hard, ugly truths about life that are important to know.

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

Everything takes me longer than I expect. It's the sad truth about life

I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?

I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.