When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.

I wish there were a class where we could just keep going around the circle. around and around, until we had finally said everything about ourselves.

If you want to have a character who falls into crisis, all you have to do is turn the Internet off, and then we all understand how that feels, when you suddenly just have time and yourself.

They wordlessly excused each other for not loving each other as much as they had planned to. There were empty rooms in the house where they had meant to put their love, and they worked together to fill these rooms with midcentury modern furniture. ("Birthmark").

... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else.

Maybe that's why people take pictures of themselves, to avoid being described.