The man believes the woman's got the hidden secret. That's a rare thing. You meet lots of people, and they're all deserved of love, of course, but romantic love involves some kind of supplement: she has the secret. That's what's desired.
John MausI don't mean to romanticise the struggle, that leads to all kinds of terrible violence and absurdities that are even worse than the perverse immediate gratification.
John MausAnytime you can muster the fury to actually write in the face of the impossibility of writing, that's an achievement.
John MausIt seems to me that the best work I've done - and maybe this is something other people can identify with - was because it was an end in itself. It was something other than making ends meet, it was an escape from all that.
John Maus