The past could be jettisoned . . . but seeds got carried.

I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I've done that day. I can't do it late in the afternoon because I'm too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages.

For however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable I.

What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.

Writers are only rarely likable.

We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images.

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.