I actually do believe in life after death.

Every writer has to find the thing to keep her eye on about which she has strong opinions. That's of course deeply personal, but the nice thing is that it has to do with joy rather than fear. It has to do with you. If you're funny, your method will be to try to be funnier. Which again is empowering I think.

I have nothing. My model is I have nothing figured out, and I'm starting with some little nugget and hoping that it will talk back to me enough to let it grow.

I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of lose my bearings.

When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.

To me that really would be the essence of kindness, to have one's awareness so developed and refined that you could tell just what was needed, and not do any more or any less, and maybe not even be aware of what you had done, except it would be a helpful thing because of how fully present you were. Well, as Aerosmith once famously said: Dream on.

The great American denial riff is that you can do whatever you like and you always triumph at the end. The world is saying no, you can do what you like, but there are consequences. And maturity is to be able to turn to the consequences and accept them.