You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.

In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.

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.

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

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.

You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?