But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another.

All over China, parents tell their children to stop complaining and to finish their quadratic equations and trigonometric functions because there are sixty-five million American kids going to bed with no math at all.

What do you do when you're no longer the hero of your own story?

I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.

Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful.

Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper.

She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric.