If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.

A writer or any suffering artist-to-be is just an instrument too finely set to the human condition [...]

In America, the distance between wanting something and having it delivered to your living room is not terribly great.

One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.

You could drown a kitten in her blue eyes.

Do not throw away your heart. Keep your heart. Your heart is all that matters ... Throw away your ancestors! ... Throw away your shyness and the anger that lies just a few inches beneath ... Accept the truth! And if there is more than one truth, then learn to do the difficult work -- learn to choose. You are good enough, you are HUMAN ENOUGH, to choose!

I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.