Now your words fill the air / with a storm of black stings / And I make a small incision in my skin / to let them in / Cruel, mean, evil, you say....

Where did feelings go when they disappeared? Did they leave a chemical trace somewhere in our minds, so that if we could look inside ourselves we would see via the patterns of neurons some of the important things that had happened to us in our lifetimes?

In my twenties, it was so important for me to show people I had all these other books and these other sorts of writing in me, ... A lot of authors, if their first book is a success, they're terrified to write a second one. But in my case, since the first book wasn't considered a literary book, I was really determined to show people I could do other types of writing.

In your thirties, your life is so completely different, it's almost impossible to reconcile who you are with who you were as a teenager, ... Even if I wanted to represent that time in my life,I couldn't. It's amazing how much changes. You're more interested in stability, in being tied to normal problems everybody else has, not the chaos that in your younger life you fall into.

I put the words down and push them a bit.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.