When the ground starts moving, all bets are off.

In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here. How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.

Going back to California is not like going back to Vermont, or Chicago; Vermont and Chicago are relative constants, against which one measures one's own change. All that is constant about the California of my childhood is the rate at which it disappears.

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

Details are our business as writers. Your heart leaps when you see a detail that can go somewhere

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

I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.