Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.

No writer, painter, or actor - no artist - is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few people are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is 'genius'), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.

What I'm saying is that I'm trying to find rational reasons to explain irrational feelings, and that's neveer a good sign.

I didn't go to bars much. One drunken asshole was all I could handle and that was me. I wrote. I don't remember a lot of it.

We either learn to accept or we end up writing letters home with crayons.

What you don’t know, you can’t tell. Or made to tell.

They were close to the end of the beginning . . .