Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.

I don't know whether I am different from other people. Perhaps I am. Perhaps no one has a personality, and people are inventing themselves in the context in which they find themselves.

Cherie, keep walking. Shut your eyes. We are headed for the bridge. We are going to cross it.

On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure.

Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.

I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.

When one crosses over from an activity, or the verb, of writing or doing, and becomes a noun, like "a writer" I think that is an act of supreme self-consciousness that I've never, in effect, made. I write, but I don't like to think of myself as a writer. I think it's somewhat self-aggrandizing and pretentious. Now, I am a teacher.