I tried to tell myself that it could be worse, that the world was not a wish-granting factory, that I was living with cancer not dying of it, that I mustn't let it kill me before it kills me.

I was struck by an awful thought, the kind that cannot be taken back once it escapes into the open air of consciousness; it seemed to me that this was not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die.

The light filtered throught the leaves and pine needles above as if through lace, the ground spotted in shadow.

The not knowing would not keep me from caring.

Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.

Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.

As far as all of our identities are dependent on how other people imagine us we are all making ourselves and each other up all the time