My idea of literature is something more spontaneous, more cohesive, something with a kind of natural, positive vitality. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a steep mountain, struggling up the face of the cliff, reaching the summit after a long and arduous ordeal. You overcome your limitations, or you don’t, one or the other.

If you don’t keep repeating a mantra of some sort to yourself, you’ll never survive.

Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

tremendous record to begin with, but still. Each time I ran a full marathon, my time went steadily down. Practice and racing became nothing more than formalities I went through, and they didn’t move me the way they used to. The amount of adrenaline I secreted on the day of a race, too, was ratcheted back a notch. Because of this I eventually turned

Usually when I approach the end of a marathon, all I want to do is get it over with, and finish the race as soon as possible. That’s all I can think of. But as I drew near the end of this ultramarathon, I wasn’t really thinking about this. The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just b

What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself.

one of the privileges given to those who’ve avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible. That’s my motto. In other words, an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body. This might sound paradoxical, but it’s something I’ve felt very keenly ever since I became a professional writer. The healthy and the