Writing … is an addiction, an illusory release, a presumptuous taming of reality, a way of expressing lightly the unbearable. That we age and leave behind this litter of dead, unrecoverable selves is both unbearable...

The dead teach this great lesson, which we are loathe to learn: we too will die.

Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.

Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.