I've been depressed many times in my life. But under it all I'm an optimist.

This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue-people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

Being in the library is so addictive for me that I really have to exercise self-control so I can get some writing done at home.

without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life.

I felt like an undeveloped photograph that he was printing, my image rising to the surface under his gaze.

We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.

A womans mistakes are different from a girls