Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.

Oh, God. What was happening to her, she was turning into a normal person.

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?

As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.