We all sleep with the corpses of our dead lovers.

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.

I had begun what I thought might be a career in social work. I was married and deeply involved in the anti-war movement. I thought I'd go about saving the world one person at a time. I worked with kids, teenagers mostly, in neighborhood centers, on the streets, and eventually in a drop-in center.

I think I've learned to be mindful. I may not have taken the time to try to understand narrative techniques, let's say, with any rigor, if I did not also have to try to explain those techniques to someone else.

Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.

Reading is also a creative activity if you're doing it right. You can learn more from a story that's left the tracks than from a successful story.

It's easier to write about a place sometimes when you've left it, when you can apply your imagination to your memory and let your emotions guide the writing about a place.