They shouldn’t be too perfect; perfect means shallow and unreal and fatally uninteresting. I like for them to have a nice sick sense of humor and to be concerned with important things, by which I mean that they are interested in political and psychological and spiritual matters. I want them to want to know who we are and what life is all about. I like them to be mentally ill in the same sorts of ways that I am; for instance, I have a friend who said one day, "I could resent the ocean if I tried," and realized that I love that in a guy. I like for them to have hope—if a friend or a narrator reveals himself or herself to be hopeless too early on, I lose interest. It depresses me. It makes me overeat. I don’t mind if a person has no hope if he or she is sufficiently funny about the whole thing, but then, this being able to be funny definitely speaks of a kind of hope, of buoyancy.

A society is like an individual: in the face of a dark night it can either become defensive and avoid the challenge of new life, or it can reform itself and discover in the darkness where it has gone wrong.

During a dark night of the soul, it helps to have your imagination wide open, both active and receptive. But we live in a world charmed by studies filled with numbers and charts, and machines full of blinking lights and a steady hum. We reduce most of life to factual and technical language and feel satisfied with talk of genes and DNA. In this environment, imagination, wit, and humor seem soft and nonessential.

The people I trust most to be my teachers and guides can laugh at the human situation and at themselves. They can see irony in the most serious matters. Their laughter seems to free up their compassion and liberate them from narcissistic worry about themselves. Tragedy tends toward self-pity, while a more subtle and complicated view allows you to go beyond any preoccupation with yourself.

Later these [tears and rage] turn into exquisite stories and subtle feelings. Her language changes as she gains insight. Depth of perception often leads to beauty of expression.