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" I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities. "

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" When people suffer, their relationships usually suffer as well. Period. And we all suffer because, as the Buddha says, that's the nature of being human and wanting stuff we don't always get. "

" I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist. It comes out of that Symbolist idea, back to Rimbaud and all that disordering of the senses and all of that being some exalted state. When I've been that way, I've always been less exalted than I would have liked. "

" Having a great dad probably permitted me to pal around with guys in a way that some women don't. "

" I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I'd been publishing for 20 years. "

Overnight Success

" I don't have a copy of my books, and the degree to which I never read them is profound. I never look. "

" I find a great deal of comfort and care in my faith and prayer. I'd sooner do without air than prayer. "

" I do have a really good memory. I mean, like, I can remember all the phone numbers of everybody on the street I grew up on. "

" The audiobooks I buy are never first-time reads - only rereadings of books I know well that I find intoxicating. "

" For days on end, I avoid the Web, never logging in until about two or three, after I've written all morning. On a good week, I don't go online till after Wednesday, so four or five days might lapse without my checking e-mail. "

" On a piece of prose, you have to work at least six hours a day. I don't know how you can do that and teach and raise a kid and paint the house. "

" I believe in God, but even if you don't, you can believe in a self, the person who is innately who you are. Once you fully become that person, then everything you do will be blessed. "

" If dysfunction means that a family doesn't work, then every family ambles into some arena in which that happens, where relationships get strained or even break down entirely. We fail each other or disappoint each other. That goes for parents, siblings, kids, marriage partners - the whole enchilada. "

" Most of the people I write about I'm still in touch with, so I would be loath to make up stuff about them. "

" I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves. "

" The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold. "

" Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time. "

" I'm doomed to act like myself, even when it's inconvenient! "

" When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That's when the sparkle started for me. "

" I don't think I look like the pope's favorite Catholic - at least not under close scrutiny. "

" Success has affected my self-definition in that I have more money. Writers pooh-pooh that idea, but it's a huge deal. "

" Young writers often mistakenly choose a certain vein or style based on who they want to be, unconsciously trying to blot out who they actually are. You want to escape yourself. "

" There are all kinds of things God wants me to do that I'm very obstreperous about. "

" I'm always astonished by the confidence my readers put in me. "

" Writing about prayer to a secular audience is tap-dancing on the radio. I want to say, 'Gee whiz, isn't this great,' and have everyone's head cocked like the RCA dog. "

" The emotional stakes a memoirist bets with could not be higher, and it's physically enervating. I nap on a daily basis like a cross-country trucker. "

" I've never contended that I had a really horrible life. "

" My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do. It's morally useful not in a political way, but it makes your heart bigger; it's emotionally and spiritually empowering. "

" There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety. "

" Both my parents were agnostic. My mother was kind of a Buddhist. She had some spiritual tendencies, but they were kind of flaky - New Agey, you know? Which is partly why I'm suspicious of that sort of thing. I'm skeptical of any spiritual practice that doesn't involve other people and doesn't involve some sort of consistent tradition. "

" I have a completely addictive personality. Diet Coke is my last - God, I know people counting days off Diet Coke; I'm such a Diet Cokehead. Now I won't let myself buy it. "