To Feel Estranged From Language Is To

It's June Second, He Told Himself. Try To Remember That. This Is New York, And Tomorrow Will Be June Third. If All Goes Well, The Following Day Will Be The Fourth. But Nothing Is Certain.

It's Beyond The Grasp Of Anyone's Memory To Recall Conversations In Kind Of [memoir] Detail. So It's Fake. It's All Made Up.

I Sometimes Feel That My Goal As A Novelist Would Be To Write A Novel In Which The Language Was So Transparent That The Reader Would Forget That Language Was The Medium Of Understanding. Of Course That's Not Possible, But It's Some Sort Of Idealized Goal.

I Can Never Say 'why' About Anything I Do. I Suppose I Can Say 'how' And 'when' And 'what.' But 'why' Is Impenetrable To Me.

There Is A Line From The Marina Tsvetaeva Poem I'm So Fond Of: "in This Most Christian Of Worlds/ All Poets Are Jews." What She Means Is That Writers And Artists Are Outside The Normal Flow Of Daily Life, The Normal Flow Of Society In General.