Life in general in my experience gets deeper and deeper, more and more profound, more and more complex, the older one gets.

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

There is a fallacy that the powerful emotion of youth mellows with time. Not true. One learns to control and suppress it. But it doesn't lessen. It simply hides and concentrates itself in more discreet places. When one accidentally stumbles into one of these abysses, the pain is spectacular.

I forced myself to picture the last moments. The penultimate breath. A final sigh. And yet. It was always followed by another.

If I had a camera,' I said, 'I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life.

I think of novels as houses. You live in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as a writer.

I read differently now, more painstakingly, knowing I am probably revisiting the books I love for the last time. (245)