I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface

I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.

I’m interested in what people do with the chaos in their lives and how they respond to it, and simultaneously what they do with what they feel like are limitations. If they push against these limitations, will they wind up in the realm of chaos, or will they push against limitations and wind up in the world of freedom?

There were many hours when I never quite know how I'd gotten there or why I stayed.

Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends.

What I have in mind when I start to write could fit inside an acorn-an acorn, moreover, that rarely if ever grows into an oak. Write fiction and you relinquish reason. You start with an acorn and you end up with a mackerel.

Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.