You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and sex must be as bright as the future you gamble.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

I used to believe that love and happiness were synonymous. I was a fool. Love intensifies all emotions. Nothing is so painful o so sweet, so thrilling or so desperate... Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love thats essential. You are never so alive as when you love, never so alert, intuitive, attentive, never so smart or so compassionate.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.