I have always trusted writers, books, thinkers, psychologists in figuring things out. Maybe because they don't know me, so they are always honest, if that makes sense. Their wisdom and counsel are always unconditional.

I have always trusted writers, books, thinkers, psychologists in figuring things out. Maybe because they don't know me, so they are always honest, if that makes sense. Their wisdom and counsel are always unconditional.

Our lives are a long series of acquiring and then sloughing narratives.

When I was in college I started writing prose, because a very smart professor asked me what I like to read and I said, "Novels," and she said, "You should be writing them then." Memoir never even occurred to me. I think I was afraid of nonfiction and I was afraid of navel-gazing, and of being seen.

Maybe feeling of presence in my body is why I've always sought out extreme experiences; it forces me to be in a moment, to face the fact of my existing in that particular moment, in my body.

It has been my experience that the people I judge most harshly are the ones in whom I recognize some part of myself.

I can still discern people's weaknesses, but it doesn't make me want to exploit them; it makes me want to hug them.