I think I’ve learned to be mindful. I may not have taken the time to try to understand narrative techniques, let’s say, with any rigor, if I did not also have to try to explain those techniques to someone else.

As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

And life is but a dream... Things happened in life, and you felt them, but it was all in your mind, the colors, the fear and anxiety. People surrounded you and houses did, and towns, but what you saw was not so important as what you felt. Life was one thing after another, a brief insanity, a series of inexplicable transitions that seemed at the time sensible, but at second sight ridiculous, a succession of unconnected incidents, accidental relationships.

Reading is also a creative activity if you’re doing it right. You can learn more from a story that’s left the tracks than from a successful story.

Place is character. And all writing is regional.

I told her how I thought you could always revise your life, how you could work and work on it, finesse the details, see if what you’re saying is what you wanted to be saying.

Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how important this work we’re doing is.

I was always writing. I just didn’t know if I was any good.

I learned to love stories by listening to them.

I had begun what I thought might be a career in social work. I was married and deeply involved in the anti-war movement. I thought I’d go about saving the world one person at a time. I worked with kids, teenagers mostly, in neighborhood centers, on the streets, and eventually in a drop-in center.