I think that's the thing that memoir can do more than anything it does; it testifies and bears witness to the existence of people whose lives, pleasures and virtues would never have been testified to without my having done it. That makes me really glad.

I went to college to study hospitality. I quickly got out of that and realized that what I liked to do was write.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

It is right that you have to have a tolerance for solitude. But when that solitude bears fruit, you can abandon it. You can be in the company of others.

What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.

I'm dyslexic. If you can reconcile yourself to not being able to burn through books, which you shouldn't any way, you can slow the whole process down. Then, because of my disability, there is more for me in imaginative literature than there is for other people.

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.