Sorrow seemed to me to be more like a road wound through life - Alexander Chee

My mother's most common childhood memory of me is standing next to me trying to be heard over the voice on the page. I didn't really commit to writing until I understood that it meant making that happen for someone else.

There's a reason that whenever fascists come to power, the writers are among the first to go to jail.

You are never lost in sorrow, it seems to me, ever. You do know the way. In fact, you don't think there's any other. Sorrow seemed to me to be more like a road would through life, through the days of your life, like the old Roman ruins near the Tuileries or the rue d'Enfer — underneath this life, but never really apart from it.