I Do Think I Was

The Big Occurrences In Life, The Serious Ones, Have For Me Always Been Nearly Impossible To Recognize Because They Never Feel Big Or Serious. In The Moment, You Have To Pee, Your Arm Itches, Or What People Are Saying Strikes You As Melodramatic Or Sentimental, And It's Hard Not To Smirk. You Have A Sense Of What This Type Of Situation Should Be Like - For One Thing, All-consuming - And This Isn't It. But Then You Look Back, And It Was That; It Did Happen.

You Know, The Point Of A Novel - Or To Me, The Point Of A Novel, The Gift Of A Novel Is To Go Really Deeply Inside People's Lives And Inside Their Personal Experiences.

Well, I Think That If You Sincerely Try To Imagine What Life Is Like For Another Person - Not In A Mocking Way, Not In A Satirical Way, But In A Sincere, Compassionate Way - I Don't Think That's Exploitive.

She Opened Her Mouth But Did Not Immediately Speak, And I Felt, Simultaneously, The Impulse To Coax The Words From Her And The Impulse To Suppress Them. I Always Thought I Wanted To Know A Secret, Or I Wanted An Event To Unfold – I Wanted My Life To Start – But In Those Rare Moments When It Seemed Like Something Might Actually Change, Panic Shot Through Me.

I Think There Is Still Pressure To Marry. I Think There Is Still Pressure To Have Children. If You're Middle Or Upper Class, Those Pressures Exist At A Later Age Now.