Once love had seemed like magic. Now it seemed like tricks.

Better to think of writing, of what one does, as an activity, rather than an identity to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun.

My new apartment might be a place where there are lots of children. They might gather on my porch to play, and when I step out for groceries, they will ask me, "Hi, do you have any kids?" and then, "Why not, don't you like kids?" "I like kids," I will explain. "I like kids very much." And when I almost run over them with my car, in my driveway, I will feel many different things.

Sometimes I ask myself if writing novels is even respectable.

Plots are for dead people.

The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the ways I feel his lack of love for me. But we are managing.

Surrealism could not be made up. It was the very electricity of the real.