Screw poetry, it’s you I want, your taste, rain on you, mouth on your skin.

Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing.

But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another.

I've been involved in activities with other people who were put in jail. We were protesting the closing of the prison farm program at the prison I used in a previous book, Alias Grace. Some of us also put up money in order to save the heirloom herd of cows there. So I own half a cow!

Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.

There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.