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

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

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.

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

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.

Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done.

With each draft, the work gets better, and usually that means tighter. It means getting the precise word, not the approximate word.