Of course we all know that's not how life works. The novel that is our life can end at any time. Sometimes even on page one.

Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.

It's never the changes we want that change everything.

Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.

Books are surviving in this intense, fragmented, hyper-accelerated present, and my sense and hope is that things will slow down again and people will want more time for a contemplative life. There is no way people can keep up this pace. No one is happy. Two or three hours to read should not be an unattainable thing, although I hope we get to that stage without needing a corporate sponsored app to hold our hand. The utopian in me has my fingers crossed that we haven't quite figured out the digital future just yet. After all, the one thing we know about people: they always surprise.

I love the kookiness of our speech. Speech is like wonderful magic and poetry in itself. I've always had to crib a lot from what I've heard.

I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.