“You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down?”

“I do think I have an ability to record sensual and emotional facts and factoids, to construct a convincing surface of what life feels like, both physical life and emotional life.”

“Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.”

“Here we go mother on the shipless ocean. Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.”