I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.

My writing is a process of rewriting, of going back and changing and filling in. in the rewriting process you discover what's going on, and you go back and bring it up to that point.

I don't write for catharsis; I have to write to understand.

I read so ravenously that I would read through whole categories. I was crazy about reading biographies. [...] I think biographies are very urgent to children.

We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices.

Let me just be in the ground. Let me just be in the ground and go to sleep.

I came into adult life equipped with an essentially romantic ethic.