The Job Of The Novel Is To

Friends, Both The Imaginary Ones You Build For Yourself Out Of Phrases Taken From A Living Writer, Or Real Ones From College, And Relatives, Despite All The Waste Of Ceremony And Fakery And The Fact That Out Of An Hour Of Conversation You May Have Only Five Minutes In Which The Old Entente Reappears, Are The Only Real Means For Foreign Ideas To Enter Your Brain.

Many Good Poets Are Really Essayists Who Write Very Short Essays.

Each Decision - To Kill, To Sign A Petition, To Write A Letter, To Make A Speech, To Attack, To Lie, To Surrender - Was Made At Some Point In Somebody's Day.

Sometimes I'll Spend An Hour Writing A Tiny Email. I Work On It Until I've Created The Illusion That I've Dashed It Off In Three Minutes. If I Make A Typo, I Let It Stand. Sometimes In Fact I Correct The Typo Without Thinking, And Then I Back Up And Retype The Typo So That It'll Look More Casual. I Don't Know Why.

You Can Tell It's A Poem Because It's Swimming In A Little Gel Pack Of White Space. That Shows It's A Poem.