Memoirists wish to tell their mind, not their story.

Writing is so hard. And then, sometimes, it is so bewilderingly easy.

The future is here, now, and the past is full of actual deeds, real history. Utopias hardly have the meat on their bones to sustain a people in grave times.

It is hard to sever the cords that tie us to our slavery and leave intact those that bind us to ourselves.

A careful first draft is a failed first draft

The paradox: there can be no pilgrimage without a destination, but the destination is also not the real point of the endeavor. Not the destination, but the willingness to wander in pursuit characterizes pilgrimage. Willingness: to hear the tales along the way, to make the casual choices of travel, to acquiesce even to boredom. That's pilgrimage -- a mind full of journey.

I come from people who have always been polite enough to feel that nothing has ever happened to them.