Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?-even if there's a time it goes out?

The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

Language is the instrument in all cases and can language be trusted?If it were not for language, could we lie?

Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort - these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work.

To be knocked out doesn't mean what it seems. A boxer does not have to get up.

I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.