Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.

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

Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.

I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.

I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.