We write to discover what we think.

New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion.

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

Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.

I work every day. Sometimes I don't accomplish anything every day, but if I don't work every day, I get depressed and get afraid to start again. So I do something every day.

The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion will live here in only the most temporary way.

we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.