It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don't look more free, they just look more owned.

…maybe the whole Internet will simply become like Facebook: falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous….” - Zadie Smith

Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.

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

I just realized quite early on that I'm not going to be the type who can write a novel every two years. I think you need to feel an urgency about the act. Otherwise, when you read it, you feel no urgency, either. So I don't write unless I really feel I need to, and that's a luxury.

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

The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.