In effect, painting is the still memory of [the artist's] human motion, and our individual responses to it depend on who we are, on our character, which underlines the simple truth that no person leaves himself behind in order to look at a painting.

Reading is perception as translation. The inert signs of an alphabet become living meanings in the mind.

Writing fiction is like remembering what never happened.

Every one of us is prone to implicit sexual prejudices, including women.

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.

Crippled and crazy, we hobble toward the finish line, pen in hand.

Every painting is always two paintings: The one you see, and the one you remember.