A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.

There is no one right way to experience what I’ve written… I write– and talk– in order to find out what I think.

“My subject is not physical illness itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor. My point is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness– and the healthiest way of being ill– is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking.”