Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how important this work we're doing is.

Every person in therapy has a love disorder.

Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting.

I sat around the kitchen every Sunday afternoon listening to my mother and aunts talk about the people in the neighborhood. Gossip - I loved it. And that turns out to be the writer's job: to attend to the gossip and spread it as far as you can.

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.

There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.

I lost my job and started painting houses with a friend. The marriage had ended about the same time the career did.