My language limitations here are real. My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life. If I really knew this language, there would surely be in my head, as there is in Webster's or the Dictionary of American Slang, that unreducible verb designed to tell a person like me what to do next.

…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.

The only recognizable feature of hope is action.

The wrong word is like a lie jammed inside the story.

I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But I don't feel that I've done more than I should have. In fact, I've done less than I should have.

I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads.

The word career is a divisive word. It's a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.