Our work is of us but is not Us. We are producing it and are wholly responsible for it, but that particular work is not all that we are. It’s a thing we’re making. We hope it is imbued with something of us and we work hard to shape it so that it is, but, once it’s done, we go right back to the drawing board, happily, and try to find another, new,

If I’ve done my best to understand that writer on his or her own terms, then and only then might I pronounce someone “not my cup of tea.” At that point, I can precisely articulate our differences and these differences tend to be more philosophical and technical, now that I understand what she’s trying to do – now that I’ve experienced the story on

Our lives as writers and readers and human beings are best served, then, I think, by an ongoing feeling of humility – taking the “blame” on ourselves, if a piece of writing alludes us, while resolving to keep working at it.