I was brought up with the sense that I was absolutely no different from my brothers. I went to college thinking I was absolutely no different from the men in college. But that's not true. I'm fundamentally different. The problem was not being able to understand difference and equality at the same time. It's something that we can't seem to comprehend. You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality. It's a mistake.

It was a kiss from the past.

And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy. But in another way, when I'm writing, what it's about for me is being good on the page. None of that noise could change the way I feel about my writing. Which is not always particularly positive.

He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.

Don't we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls.

The nineties, ecstatic decade!

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.