I am not attracted to writers by style. What style do Dickens, Grass, and Vonnegut have in common? How silly! I am attracted to what makes them angry, what makes them passionate, what outrages them, what they applaud and find sympathetic in human beings and what they detest about human beings, too. They are writers of great emotional range.

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.

As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper – or in a hurry.

Because who can describe that look that triggers the memory of loved ones? Who can anticipate the frown, the smile, or the misplaced lock of hair that sends a swift, undeniable signal from the past? Who can ever estimate the power of association, which is always strongest in moments of love and in memories of death?

I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.

It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.