A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.

In the desert the most loved waters, like a lover's name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence.

You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.

There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.

Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.