A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.

You think you want the blue skies, the open road, but really you want the tunnel, you want to know how the story ends.

One of the odd things about being a writer is that you never reach a point of certainty, a point of mastery where you can say, Right. Now I understand how this is done.

These bits of poetry that stick to her like burrs.

I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it.

To live in a city is to be forever flinching.