I think because mothers usually are the people who take care of us when we're little, and when we're little those mothers are omnipotent, perhaps men even more than women don't like to think about that dependency. That dependency is horror.

There is this assumption that much of what I write is about my life, and that simply is not true.

Writing fiction is like remembering what never happened.

Human beings are repetitive animals. All meaning is generated through repetition.

There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.

Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner.

Intellectual curiosity about one's own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery. If I couldn't cure myself, perhaps I could at least begin to understand myself.