At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say.

Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.

You wake up one morning, those years are gone. There's a comfort in this fact perhaps. I want to think that there must be comfort in all facts we can't alter.

Is there any mystery like who you finally turn out to be.

while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun 'writer' - the very verb 'writing' - always implies masculinity.

That's how a thing starts out real then ends up just an idea.

I think what distresses me most in my life is that I have so many ideas I consider exciting ideas that I will never live to execute because it takes me so long to execute.