The arena of women's lives is somewhat more intimate. If a woman goes out with an incredibly attractive man and they break up, that woman is not more attractive to men. It's completely irrelevant to them. That's an example of the way women's minds work.

I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.

Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don't join fashionable 'schools of thought.' Read everything.

I read Carver. Julio Cortázar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me.

Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.

Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]

[George Saunders] is very precise about what he is doing. There isn't a thing left to chance.