You said i could call you when i wanted but that you wouldn’t call me. you have to decide where and when, you said. if you leave it up to me i’ll want to see you every day. At least you were honest, which is more than i can say for me.

[Donald] Trump is what happens in America every time it feels economically and politically threatened, and it encounters the limitations of its own white supremacists practices.

Honestly, connecting once at the deepest level with someone, you know, once you've done that, even if your life goes to hell, man, it was really worth living.

An ear will never do you wrong, but I know writers who... most of the language they use is just extracted language from other languages they've read. I am a big-time reader, but I mix and match.

You can't regret the life you didn't lead.

But it's clear to me that us slow-poke writers are a dying breed. It's amazing how thoroughly my young writing students have internalized the new machine rhythm, the rush many of my young writers are in to publish. The majority don't want to sit on a book for four, five years. The majority don't want to listen to the silence inside and outside for their artistic imprimatur. The majority want to publish fast, publish now.

My art feels like it's real disobedient. I can fill notebooks with observations and maybe they find their way into the work unconsciously, which is great. I've never been able to directly plug, like to take a little snip that I've picked up on the street and transfer it into a story. I don't know what's wrong, but it never works that way.