Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.

I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence.

Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?

When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a flickering sun-struck instance that existed now and forever. Only occasionally did I notice the chain on the finch's ankle, or think what a cruel life for a little living creature - fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless place.

The trouble is when people read about authors, they don't feel compelled to read the authors' work.

Not quite what one expected, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way.