self
I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.
Empathy Exams (Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2014), 23.
Sometimes it is good fortune to be abandoned. While we are looking after our losses, our selves may slip back inside.
“An Average Sadness,” in I Thought My Father Was God (New York: Henry Holt, 2001), 379.
Marshall McLuhan is taken far too seriously.
1967 interview, YouTube
Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.
Letter to a student dated December 10, 1951, in Letters of E. B. White, rev. edition edited by Martha White (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 316.
I’m very interested in someone’s path to knowledge being a kind of madness. I’m interested in the route that people must take to arrive at a spot where they can be large and whole and responsive.
“Scott Spencer,” interviewed by Lorrie Moore, BOMB magazine, issue 67, Spring 1999.