The screams of a hurt woman were indistinguishable from everyday traffic.

Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality - collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other.

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

At some point in life, the world's beauty becomes enough.

Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

Usually I try to be there by six. Everything has been taken off the walls so that there's nothing to arrest my sight. On the bed I have Roget's Thesaurus, a dictionary, a Bible, and a deck of playing cards.