Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.

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.

A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don't matter a damn anymore.

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

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

What good are insights? They only make things worse.

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.