I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

I am a moralist. I worry.

I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later.

I like marriage. The idea.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers.