“I couldn't eat because that book made me cry so hard, I couldn't even breathe. Connie said to keep reading and keep breathing, like that was easy. Tears and snot just about came out my butt, I cried so hard”

“Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.”

“What was he like afterwards?Totally adorable-he fell asleep right on top of me!What was he like afterwards?I thought he'd died. No, Really! He fell asleep-I had to roll him off of me so i could breathe”

“I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.”

“Breathing is hard. When you cry so much, it makes you realize that breathing is hard.”

“Mysterious My paper shinesWhite, like snow, but the paper looks empty.I could decorate itwith tiny spidersor stars or sketches of melooking at a blank page,but the clock ticks,and somehow I must write.I like the sight of untouched snow.Gentle, slow, silent,it drifts and swirls, layers itself, and I seea new world of mysterious,inviting shapes. I walk in its whitewhispers, susurrus.I driftback to this paper that feelshard on the disk, and I beginto listen-to the story I tell myself.The paper is a white, patient place,my private spacefor remembering,saving: spring sun on my faceventing and inventing,arguing with my mother,wondering: who am I,wandering through cobwebs of old dreams,crying, sighing at people who don't see me, hoping to write music so bluelisteners forget to breathe,playing the sounds, jamming with myself,changing....into the me I can't quite see.”

“Here's what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.”