That's The Artist's Job, Really:

I Asked Myself If I Would Kill My Parents To Save His Life, A Question I Had Been Posing Since I Was Fifteen. The Answer Always Used To Be Yes. But In Time, All Those Boys Had Faded Away, And My Parents Were Still There. I Was Now Less And Less Willing To Kill Them For Anyone; In Fact, I Worried For Their Health. In This Case, However, I Had To Say Yes. Yes, I Would.

My Ideal Life Is Just Lounging Around The House And Every Once In A While I'll Kind Of Write Something, And Then I'll Leave And Eat Something And Masturbate Or Whatever - Just This Very Fluid Life Of Comforting Myself.

It Would Require Constant Vigilance To Not Replace Each Person With My Own Fictional Version Of Them.

After I Had My Son I Looked Everywhere For A Book That Might Serve As Some Kind Of Mirror. I Bought So Many Silly Books. Now I See What The Problem Was: I Wanted A Book About Time-about Mortality. I Can't Think Of A Writer Who Is At Once So Experimentally Daring And So Rigorously Uncompromising As Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness Is An Incredibly Elegant, Wise Book, And I Loved It.

She Bludgeoned Me With A Look Of Such Limitless Compassion That I Immediately Began To Cry.