It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.

There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

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

She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out of the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Sugar and spice - cinnamon - burned into the crust. But she's wearing these dark glasses in the kitchen at ten o'clock in the morning - everything nice - as she watches me break off a piece, bring it to my mouth, and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen, in winter. I fork the pie in and tell myself to stay out of it. She says she loves him. No way could it be worse.

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.