I suppose you retire from trying. If you retire from trying, you think, "Maybe love will just come my way if I don't want it anymore."

There's a quote that I learned in college a million years ago. "Happy, thought I, is the man who can, in one and the same embrace, hold both his love and the object of his love." Holding the feeling that you have and all the images that you've got and all the fantasies and romantic associations while also holding the actual core person that's been saddled with all of this.

That's what perfect means. You're finished.

I've always wanted to figure out how to do a walking story. I'd never figured out how to do one and have it work or be interesting or have anything that it's about.

I know that I was able to find my way out of most of my feelings by writing.

You can sometimes find something good on the other side of doing something very, very painful.

Teaching writing puts you on the point of a pin in terms of what you want your own writing to be.