… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign; it is at least a form of being human.

Almost everyone is dying to leave home, eventually; and almost everyone needs to.

It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where and how a story ended.

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.’ (David Copperfield) “But all that night he lay awake because the phantoms of those days were not gone. Like the tiny, terrible holes in the prophylactics, the phantoms of those days were not easy to detect—and their meaning was unknown—but they were there.

You cannot drive with your eyes in the rear-view mirror… But dignity is difficult to maintain. Stamina requires constant upkeep. Repetition is boring. And you pay for grace.

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.