We imagine things — that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. ... We have no choice, so we do it.

I can't imagine writing if I didn't have a reader. Any more than an actor can imagine acting without an audience.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.

Mourning has its place but also its limits.

It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.

There must be times when everybody writes when they feel they're evading writing.

We were not having any fun, he had recently begun pointing out. I would take exception (didn't we do this, didn't we do that) but I had also known what he meant. He meant doing things not because we were expected to do them or had always done them or should do them but because we wanted to do them. He meant wanting. He meant living.