Words matter, words have import.

We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

With a novel, no matter where I am in it, I'm fretting about it. Every time I write a book, it starts with great forward momentum. Then there seems to be a period where it slows down a bit, and other things intervene. Then I gain momentum.

But what we can never do is change the story that has made us what we are. It's a story completely dictated by the accumulation of life's manifold complexities—its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what has happened to us.

We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.

There is much to be said for solitude.