Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea.

Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.

There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.

A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.

I don't think it's a question of whether you eat meat. It's a question of what kind of meat, and where it comes from.

I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.

We have begun to slam doors, and to throw things. I throw my purse, an ashtray, a package of chocolate chips, which breaks on impact. We are picking up chocolate chips for days. Jon throws a glass of milk, the milk, not the glass: he knows his own strength, as I do not. He throws a box of Cheerios, unopened. The things I throw miss, although they are worse things. The things he throws hit, but are harmless. I begin to see how the line is crossed, between histrionics and murder.