I Think Attempting To Make Art Is

When I Was Small And Easily Wounded Books Were My Carapace. If I Were Recalled To My Hurts In The Middle Of A Book They Somehow Mattered Less. My Corporeal Life Was Slight The Dazzling One In My Head Was What Really Mattered. Returning To Books Was Coming Home.

While Writing, Writers Are Living Inside A Character Or Characters, And When The Book Ekes Into The World, Writers Are Living Inside The Reader. That's More Than Connecting.

It Seems To Me That If You Were To Take Almost Any Half-century In History, You'd Find A Grand Societal Tug-of-war Between The Community And The Individual.

I Feel Like In American Fiction We're Moving Out Of A Period Of Intense Irony, And I'm Very Glad About That. I Feel Like Irony Is Fine For Its Own Sake But Shouldn't Be The Sole Reason To Write A Book. It Has Been An Ironic World View: That's The Best Way I Can Describe It. I'm A Fan Of Earnestness. I Feel Like There's A New Wave Of Earnestness And I'd Be Happy If I'm Some Small Part Of That.

Even Still, We Run. We Have Not Reached Our Average Of 57.92 Years Without Knowing That You Run Through It, And It Hurts And You Run Through It Some More, And If It Hurts Worse, You Run Through It Even More, And When You Finish, You Will Have Broken Through. In The End, When You Are Done, And Stretching, And Your Heartbeat Slows, And Your Sweat Dries, If You've Run Through The Hard Part, You Will Remember No Pain.