When You're Writing Fiction, You

Once, In A Dry Season, I Wrote In Large Letters Across Two Pages Of A Notebook That Innocence Ends When One Is Stripped Of The Delusion That One Likes Oneself. Although Now, Some Years Later, I Marvel That A Mind On The Outs With Itself Should Have Nonetheless Made Painstaking Record Of Its Every Tremor, I Recall With Embarrassing Clarity The Flavor Of Those Particular Ashes. It Was A Matter Of Misplaced Self-respect.

We Were Not Having Any Fun, He Had Recently Begun Pointing Out. I Would Take Exception (didn't We Do This, Didn't We Do That) But I Had Also Known What He Meant. He Meant Doing Things Not Because We Were Expected To Do Them Or Had Always Done Them Or Should Do Them But Because We Wanted To Do Them. He Meant Wanting. He Meant Living.

I Learned Early To Keep Death In My Line Of Sight, Keep It Under Surveillance, Keep It On Cleared Ground And Away From Any Brush Where It Might Coil Unnoticed.

You Aren't Sure If You're Making The Right Decision - About Anything, Ever.

I Always Want Everything Read In One Sitting. If They Can't Read It In One Sitting, You're Going To Lose The Rhythm Of It. You're Going To Lose The Shape Of It.