I don't really ask of myself a given word or page count or number of hours. To work every day, that's my only fetish. And there is a physical quality to it when a novel is thriving.

Life is fundamentally up for grabs

Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror

There's something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies.

Nature, or at least birds and women, abhorred the invisible man.

To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

I don't have a lot of paper in my immediate work environment, except when I'm doing things like checking the godforsaken proofs.