Someone ... tell us what's important, because we no longer know.

Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married.

Your life doesn't mean what you have or what you get. Its what your'e willing to give up.

The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.

The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing.

Maybe I'm a serial regional writer. First here, then there, across the map.

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.