I was now both the secret and the keeper of it, but the idea that I could not know what is was I served, nor why, nor who, became nearly unendurable … - Alexander Chee

...the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure and success.

It isn't just that you fall in love with someone — you each allow yourself new identities with each other, new skins, almost like a cocoon to who you'll be next.

When writers in New York complained they could not write after 9/11, it seemed to me they were frozen by writing for that audience, by writing for the missing. Who we all felt, somehow, were watching. Waiting to see if we were worthy of being alive when they were dead. Waiting to see the stories we would tell about the life they would no longer have among us - waiting to see if it was worth it.