Death is the least civilized rite of passage.

By writing I can live in ways that I could not survive.

i want to hear what's happened to you," she said evenly after a while. she gestured in the direction, down river, of the butcher shop. "it's just that there is nowhere else to start," she said gently. "niether of us is the same. but i'm different because of small, good, manageable things. you're different because ... things i don't know.

You really need to approach each book as if you have been a failure. . . . If you start to believe your flap-copy, you're finished as a writer.

The Internet, which seems now so embedded and personal and crucial to our lives, isn't at all - we really shouldn't think of it that way.

People forget the good, because the bad has more punch.

I tried out the unfamiliar syllables. They fit. They cracked in my ears like a fist through ice.