The lover`s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn`t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, the most solitary of places.

Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.

There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.

I want an ending that’s satisfying. I’m more of a classical writer than a modernist one in that I want the ending to be coherent and feel like an ending. I don’t like when it just seems to putter out. I mean, life is chaotic enough.

All sixteen mentioned her jutting ribs, the insubstantiality of her thighs, and one, who went up to the roof with Lux during a warm winter rain, told us how the basins of her collarbones collected water.

She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.