I think it's very hard to reconcile oneself to the notion that it may not matter what you think if you still want to write.

[Reality] isn't simply the so-called world that you're in. Your reality is a much larger one that takes in all matter of identification and desires and hopes.

It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.

If I have to work on something for too long, then it must be wrong. At a certain point, if I've worked on a sentence for about an hour, then I realize that it's probably not the right sentence and means I'm trying to make something fit that's ungainly.

Nothing is a matter of age. It's really in the person because you can publish book after book after book and still want that golden apple. And maybe it's the reality principle that has hit me. I believe that a career is very different from writing. My career is a certain kind of career.

I write about what I'm thinking about. I write about what is bothering me or what is a political, aesthetic, or ethical issue or something, and then I figure out how to do it. I don't write essays that kind of just sustain one thought. I tend to move around because that's what I like.

I do think we think repetitively. It's so hard to get certain thoughts out of your head. If you're angry at a friend, you're going to keep going back to that conversation.