Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.
Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.
It is impossible to capture the essence of love in writing, only its symptoms remain, the erotic absorption, the huge disparity between the times together and the times apart, the sense of being excluded.
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.
My hand does the work and I don't have to think; in fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. It's like a dam in the brain that bursts.
Writing is like carrying a fetus.
I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt.
I am obsessive, also I am industrious. Besides, the time when you are most alive and most aware is in childhood and one is trying to recapture that heightened awareness.
Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.
