I was a good student, sort of funny and athletic. I had friends.

I, for one, find writing excruciating. Some mornings, as I'm on my way to my desk, my hands actually tremble with fear. The fear, of course, is that I'll sit down at the desk and discover that what I've written is claptrap. Fear inevitably leads to procrastination.

I think most memoirs, though they purport to be about this particular time or this person you met, are really about the effect that person or time had on you.

I was a good student, sort of funny and athletic. I had friends.

Sight is a slick and overbearing autocrat, trumpeting its prodigal knowledge and perceptions so forcefully that it drowns out the other, subtler senses.

The heart of their [Walsingham Witnesses] religion seemed to lie in disproving the religion of others.

I've rarely met a miserable, self-pitying blind person.