I always say that a poet loves the world, and the prose writer needs to create an alternative world.

I do have a really good memory. I mean, like, I can remember all the phone numbers of everybody on the street I grew up on.

I believe in God, but even if you don't, you can believe in a self, the person who is innately who you are. Once you fully become that person, then everything you do will be blessed.

I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves.

I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities.

It turned out to be impossible for me to 'run away' in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken for progress in my family.

Im always terrified when Im writing.