“No doubt he is more than that, but we have no time to inquire.”

“...my thoughts don't really bump along this way, but they do bump somehow, and it's more honest--more pedagogically useful, more truthful--to arrange them in a loose, disconnected, provisional way than to deliver only the conclusions.”

“People approach writers, assuming we pull a perfect text out of our nose each time (well spelled). Spelling is the least of it.”

“Grief is a wound that needs attention in order to heal. We can have pancakes.”

“One makes discoveries about oneself but more often one makes up discoveries.”

“If life were a sea adventure, I knew: I wouldn't be sailor, pirate, or cabin boy but more likely a barnacle clinging to the side of the boat.”

“Don't tell me you're reading it,' she said, as if I were doing something to the book, whereas in fact the book was doing something to me.”