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

I dressed and went for a walk - determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to offer.

Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

It's akin to style, what I'm talking about, but it isn't style alone. It is the writer's particular and unmistakable signature on everything he writes. It is his world and no other. This is one of the things that distinguishes one writer from another. Not talent. There's plenty of that around. But a writer who has some special way of looking at things and who gives artistic expression to that way of looking: that writer may be around for a time.

My life is going to change. I feel it.

I’d like to go out in the front yard and shout something. “None of this is worth it!” That’s what I’d like people to hear.