There's literary creation and literary business. When I first got something accepted, it gave my life a validation it didn't otherwise have.

There is no answer. It's okay. But even if it wasn't okay, what am I supposed to do?

Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.

I am too nervous to eat pie.

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.

I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.

In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well.