You know, as fiction writers, if our instincts are off, we can't pay our bills.

Later I would come to believe that erotic ties were all a spell, a temporary psychosis, even a kind of violence, or at least they coexisted with these states.

She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.

There was the usual dreaminess, I suppose. Also a shyness that caused me - and others - to notice that I could express myself better by writing than by speaking. This is typical of many writers, I think. What is a drawback in childhood is an asset to a literary life. Not being fluent on one’s feet sends one to the page and a habit is born.

There seemed nothing so true as a yellow tree.

I don't care if I'm a fish, I still want a bicycle.

But that inadequacy, or feeling of inadequacy, never really goes away. You just have to trudge ahead in the rain, regardless.