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.

Domesticity has been a challenge for me but painful as it's been, engaging with family has been a school for reducing solipsism and increasing my understanding of people's different reactions to stress.

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

I've had an enduring appreciation of psychology.

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.

You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel.

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.