“I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.”

“The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write—and many of the people who do write—get lost.”

“I could have had one life but insteads I had another because of this book my grandmother protected. What a miracle is that? I was taught to love beautiful things. I had a language in which to consider beauty. Later that extended to the opera, to the ballet, to architecture I saw, and even later still I came to realize that what I had seen in the paintings I could see in the fields or a river. I could see it in people. All of that I attribute to this book.”

“I will write my way into another life.”

“When you think of love you think as an American. You must think like a Russian. It is a more expansive view.''Americans havea bad habbit of thinking like Americans,' Roxane said kindly.”

“I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldn't have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldn't that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write?”

“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.”