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.

My heart is broken,” she goes. “It’s turned to a piece of stone. I’m no good. That’s what’s as bad as anything, that I’m no good anymore.

I guess my writing has changed as my life has.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

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.

I am a cigarette with a body attached to it

Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.