Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.

The essential dilemma of my life is between my deep desire to belong and my suspicion of belonging.

The urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in a grammatical relation to one another is the most basic, ongoing impulse of my life.

It took me a long time to even dare to envision myself as a writer. I was very uncertain and hesitant and afraid to pursue a creative life.