Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing

The 20th century saw far greater catastrophes than September 11th, as bad as it was, and they didn't render literature or art or music irrelevant. In fact, I think that literature and art help us to understand - sometimes they provide narratives and metaphors for understanding history, for understanding recent catastrophes.

Anybody who becomes a movie star becomes successful at projecting a certain image to the public.

If being a spokesman for a generation is a fleeting occupation, being a symbol of an era is downright dangerous for anyone who has the bad luck to outlive it.

Most all of the writers I admired when I was in my teens and twenties died young. Fitzgerald lived the longest. He was 44. Dylan Thomas was 39. And then once you're approaching 40, you suddenly think, "Well, maybe I would like to live longer than Fitzgerald or Thomas."

There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I'm not like that.

Mine is not an autonomous imagination.