We all - in the end - die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don't ever go out for lunch and I don't take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

In every person's face, there is one place that seems to express them most accurately. With my grandmother, you always looked at her mouth.

So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn't matter anymore, forever after

Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.

Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept a desk near the boiler room. Keats buttoning up his clean white shirt to write in, after work.