It's only when you're forbidden to talk about the future that you suddenly realize how much the future normally occupies the present.

A dreary censorship, and self-censorship, has been imposed on books by the centralization of the book industry.

I've become more conservative about sex as I've gotten older.

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner.

Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.