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

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

Overnight Success

" 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. "

" As a memoirist, I strive for veracity. "

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

" Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it. "

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

" Nobody sounds good writing about your divorce, let's face it. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I think the problem with visual media like TV is that they're reductive. "

" 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 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. "

" 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 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. "

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

" 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 get about five memoirs per week in my mailbox, and few of them inspire anything but a desire to pick up the channel changer. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" Poetry privileges music and is aesthetically more challenging. Prose privileges information and is emotionally more challenging. "

" 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. "

" 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. "