[W]e must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie…. It casts out stress as the heat of the hand repels quicksilver…. Keep you your precious vapors, your fantods, your anxiety. Give me a pie. Give me a pie anyday. – David Mamet, Boston Marriage
Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up. – Joan Didion
