Sometimes I stumble upon a wonderfully irresistible to me voice, unexpectedly.

Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus we cannot know that we have failed to see it.

How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?

Food doesn't exist, but can only be invented. And reinvented.

I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write the ending, so I may spend part of morning writing the ending, the last 100 pages approximately, and then part of the morning revising the beginning. So the style of the novel has a consistency.

The other book that I worry no one reads anymore is James Joyce's Ulysses. It's not easy, but every page is wonderful and repays the effort. I started reading it in high school, but I wasn't really able to grasp it. Then I read it in college. I once spent six weeks in a graduate seminar reading it. It takes that long. That's the problem. No one reads that way anymore. People may spend a week with a book, but not six.

There is an hour when you realize: here is what you have been given. More than this, you won't receive. And what this is, what your life has come to, will be taken from you. In time.