All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.

He is not simply looking into the mirror because he is transfixed by what he sees. Rather, the artist’s success depends as much as anything on his powers of detachment, on de-narcissizing himself… Freud… studied his own dreams not because he was a “narcissist,” but because he was a student of dreams. And whose were at once the least and most accessible of dreams, if not his own?

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.

When I was a child... I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, 'Momma, do we believe in winter?'

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.