The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story – of course that is how we all live, it’s the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It’s like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It’s like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you – and it can’t, and it shouldn’t, because something is missing.

She was a monster, but she was my monster.

I am getting much more political as I get older. It's the duty of any writer, in particular, not to stand back from the world.

That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.

Nothing can be forgotten. Nothing can be lost. The universe itself is one vast memory system. Look back and you will find the beginnings of the world.

I can't do it. I've been here before and it's not a room with a view. The only power I have is the negative power of withdrawal. If I don't withdraw I have no power at all. A relationship where one person has no power or negative power, isn't a relationship, it's the bond between master and slave.

The crazy thing is that when we go to somebody's house, what's better than looking at their bookshelves? Nobody's ever going to say, "Can I see the index to your Kindle?" It's so depressing and so unsexy. Sure, it's there, but nobody is going to get excited by that.