The past is the prism through which we see a great, great, great deal of ourselves; it's a useful prism. It doesn't mean that we're fascinated by the dead or that we're fascinated by things that are settled. It is just one place where we can go to understand ourselves in the present.

Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that

Things you did. Things you never did. Things you dreamed. After a long time they run together.

For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime?

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

I didn't read a serious book until I was 19.

You can't always go to the well and have things be funny.