People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.

I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible.

Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama.

I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means.

Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

My heart broke all over again. I wanted my life back, my mama, but I knew I would never have that. The child I had been was gone with the child she had been. We were new people, and we didn't know each other anymore. I shook my head desperately.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.