My other work, teaching, also is satisfying because I can be with people but in controlled circumstances, which aren't as likely to yield the pain of dealing with family.

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.

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

In new work, we need to see the shadow, however faint, of previous literary effort.

Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas.

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.

In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you're always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out.