I like the freedom that comes with lowered expectations..

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I ….

I've had an enduring appreciation of psychology..

Indeed, at times it's best to shut up..

The essay is a wonderful medium. I might mention that some writers who longed to be novelists were better as essayists: Sontag, Baldwin, Vidal, Mary ….

Hedonism can be a rational response to a difficult life..

I'm fortunate in being able to find great satisfaction in my work..

The essay must be artistically rendered: You must keep the reader engaged, whether with wit, conflict, mischief, and/or yes, with honesty..

Why am I attracted to all these lying quotes all of a sudden? Here’s another one. This one by Phillip Lopate: ‘(Children know it better than adults) ….

A personal essay often includes some or a lot of personal confession. That makes the reader feel less lonely in their confusion and darkness..

My wife and daughter have accused me of being too silent at breakfast but I don't want to talk when I don't have much to say..

Contradictory strands create an essay that's richly ambivalent..

Domesticity has been a challenge for me but painful as it's been, engaging with family has been a school for reducing solipsism and increasing my und….

In new work, we need to see the shadow, however faint, of previous literary effort..

I imagined a psychic pain growing inside him (myself) that demanded some physical outlet. Suicide must have been his attempt to give Pain a body, a r….

Think of a dinner party as a club of revolutionaries, a technocratic elite whose social interactions that night are a dry run for some future takeove….

The dinner party is a suburban form of entertainment. Its spread in our big cities represents an insidious Fifth Column suburbanization of the metrop….

I really do like to write and when I'm not, I think, "Okay, I'll be a good citizen now" but fact is, that's secondary..

For most of my life, I have wanted broad impact but now, at 72, I'm not so sure that's always my first priority..

Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas..

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot..