If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.

Lay my head on the railroad line. Train come along; pacify my mind.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are at their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?

I don't think I knew any of my father's friends - male friends - by their real names. I remember them only by their nicknames.