The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language..

People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although….

We are the stories we tell ourselves.

I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not..

What I want to tell you today is not to move into that world where you're alone with yourself and your mantra and your fitness program or whatever it….

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect..

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear..

You have to pick the places you don't walk away from..

There's a point when you go with what you've got. Or you don't go..

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they tu….

Grammar is a piano I play by ear..

Short stories demand a certain awareness of one's own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus..

Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone..

We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpre….

I myself have always found that if I examine something, it's less scary. I grew up in the West, and we always had this theory that if you saw - if yo….

Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember..

To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self..

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget..

I don't know what I think until I write it down..

We write to discover what we think..