We all survive more than we think we can.

A young woman with long hair and a short white halter dress walks through the casino at the Riviera in Las Vegas at one in the morning. It was precisely this moment that made Play It As It Lays begin to tell itself to me.

When I am near the end of a book, I have to sleep in the same room with it.

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.

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

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

Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.