The essay is a wonderful medium. I might mention that some writers who longed to be novelists were better as essayists: Sontag, Baldwin, Vidal, Mary McCarthy, Mailer.

The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

The knowledge that my discriminations are skewed and not always universally desirable doesn't stop me in the least from making them.

My wife and daughter have accused me of being too silent at breakfast but I don't want to talk when I don't have much to say.

If someone in my family is getting emotionally bent out of shape, I've had to learn to adapt.

Have fun writing, because it enhances both the writer's and reader's experience.

... I vowed that I would always respect the right of an individual to kill himself. Whether suicide was a moral or immoral act I no longer felt sure, but of the dignity of its intransigence I was convinced.