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

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" I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen. "

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

" Poetry is for me Eucharistic. You take someone else's suffering into your body, their passion comes into your body, and in doing that you commune, you take communion, you make a community with others. "

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

" 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. "

" I'm always terrified when I'm writing. "

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

" 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. "

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

" As a memoirist, I strive for veracity. "

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

" Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You're three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down. "

" The thing I have to do as a writer, and that God permits me to do, is that I have to be willing to fail. "

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

" 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. "

" Age about 30, I stopped looking up my books in bookstores. Paying attention to the marketplace isn't a healthy thing for me. "

" It's completely through prayer that I came to believe in God. I just sensed a presence south of my neck. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" The truth is when I went to graduate school I would've said I was among the least talented of the students, I was certainly the least smart, or less educated. But I worked very hard. "

" I always thought my family was so bizarre, so when people started coming up to me and saying, 'My family was exactly like yours,' I was completely knocked out. "

" People who didn't live pre-Internet can't grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. The only bookstores sold Bibles the size of coffee tables and dashboard Virgin Marys that glowed in the dark. "

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

Overnight Success

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

" 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 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. "