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

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

I am too nervous to eat pie.

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.

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.

Remember Haydn's 104 symphonies. Not all of them were great. But there were 104 of them.

The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon's light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.