realized that at a level I'd never been conscious we'd been engaged in a game of wits for years. I suppose most writer-subject pairings are like that. Of course, I'd set aside my plan to write about him [Clark Rockfeller] as soon as I'd gotten to know him some, but now I'd resumed that intention.

To apologize for your personal absolutes, for what Sandy Pinter calls your “Core Attachments,” means apologizing for your very existence.

I've been told my old city possesses a 'thriving arts scene,' whatever that is; personally, I think artists should lie low and stick to their work, not line-dance through the parks.

've always defined a truly alluring story as a journey we're not equipped to take ourselves with a person we're tempted but afraid to emulate. Impostor narratives are exactly that. When they end in disaster, as Clark's did, or as Gatsby's did, we can congratulate ourselves for our own wisdom. We can also experience, safely, at no cost, the terrible thrill of radical self-invention, of trading who we are for who we might be.

Other people's devotions embarrassed me, perhaps because, like other people's kisses, they rarely looked genuine when viewed too closely.

Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.

Love is a powerful painkiller.