The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father. And you know what they say? I could never do that!'

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

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.

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

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

If one loves stories, then one would naturally love the story of the story. Or the story behind the story, pick your preposition. It does seem to me to be a kind of animal impulse almost, a mammalian curiosity. For a reader to wonder about the autobiography in a fiction may be completely unavoidable and in fact may speak to the success of a particular narrative, though it may also speak to its failure.

I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read?