All the Lovers in the Night

question of greatness definitely matters, if we’re thinking about where our salaries are coming from, but as far as our work is concerned, it makes no difference. Because all manuscripts are equally fair in the eyes of the proofreader,”

proofreading is a lonely business, full of lonely people.”

Every birthday since, I’ve gone out for a walk at night.

That’s why what matters is how you think about your work in your own lifetime, how much you respect it, how hard you’re trying.

t this point in life, I know better than to expect anything from men.

Nine winters ago—on the night of my twenty-fifth birthday, at a little after eleven, I decided to go out for a walk.

I’m not sure what gave me the idea, but as I sat there, watching yet another uneventful birthday coming to an end, I had the sudden desire to go out and walk around. Sure, it would probably have been nice to bring a cake home (my birthday is Christmas Eve, so the city was full of cakes), or have a conversation with somebody, but going for a walk was the only thing that came to mind that I could do on my own

I don’t know, I guess sometimes I feel happy or sad or worried . . . or maybe I get really into something on TV, or really like the flavor of some giant shrimp, whatever. But sometimes I have to wonder if those thoughts or feelings might be coming from the things I read for work. When I start to feel emotional about something, I can’t tell if I’m actually feeling that way. What if it’s just something somebody wrote in a book? Or maybe a line or a performance from some movie . . . Either way, I get this feeling like I’m quoting somebody else’s work.

People act like feminism is a dirty word. As if being a strong, hard-working woman has fallen out of fashion. Not that these people have ever thought about any of that before. They say it’s different for me. That not everyone is as strong as I am, that most people are weak or whatever. But that’s not it. They aren’t weak. They’re dull. They don’t pick up on things. And I’m not strong.

Now that the light was gone, I closed my eyes softly, knowing it would only be a short time until the light came back in the morning.

touching means you can’t get any closer