“The definition of the novel tends to be more elastic in Italy, and autofiction isn’t some trendy thing but recognized as a loose tradition.” —Jhumpa Lahiri buff.ly/ACI1gON

“Today Michael and I drove all over. The weather was spotless and clean and hot and so clear you could see past Catalina. The sunset was red and orange and pink and we watched it together and listened to the birds and humming planes.” buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I’m constantly revising my thinking—I now say, Start where you are, and then connect to the world.” —Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“Christmas there would usually be a huge family gathering—pleasant in a way, yet I remember being miserable. I couldn’t deal with all the people who sounded so sure of themselves when I didn’t feel sure of anything.” —Amy Clampitt

“I seldom know where I’m headed, but if the story is meant to be, you cross over to the other side—you’re inside it, and there’s an engine.” —Jhumpa Lahiri buff.ly/ACI1gON

“I finally finally finally got the goddamn fucking pen to do its thing and write, though perhaps this pen’s thing isn’t writing. It took an enormous amount of self-control not to throw it across the room.” Eve Babitz’s journal in our Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I love the metrical forms, the sonnet and the ballad, but to me the real thing is what I call patience, the idea of creating your own stability within a length of time.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“I write like I read—very quickly, very slowly. That is, I have the impression that I’ve spent hours and hours writing and that I’ve written twenty or thirty pages, whereas I’ve written only two.” —Hélène Cixous buff.ly/zshigS4

“Part of falling in love fast and hard is that at some point you hit the bitter, the chasm where you realize you’re two different people.” —Maggie Nelson

“Someone asked me, ‘Who do you write for?’ And I stood on that stage, this incredibly green writer, and said, ‘I write for myself.’ There was total silence.” —Jhumpa Lahiri

“I saw two old people sitting on their front steps with their backs to the sunset. ‘Look at the gorgeous sunset,’ I said, and then smiled for fear they might think I was an LSD hippie. The old man said, ‘We’ve been looking at it. God Bless California!’ ” buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I didn’t know I was queer, but I also did know, and I started to realize that I needed to find a bohemian milieu of some kind. There was a promise of safety in the beauty of writing and art.” —Robert Glück

“After I won the Pulitzer … My parents were stunned, and extremely proud, but I remember my father said, ‘You should always have a backup plan. You’re like a politician now, and you will go in and out of favor.’” —Jhumpa Lahiri

“Trying to hold yourself together when you’re falling apart all over the place is extraordinarily weird, I feel like I’m about to topple over or faint. My mother says this feeling only lasts for 4 days.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I began to understand that the creative life is not the same as the academic life, that the academic stuff can be quite antithetical to creation.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“I feel just worthless today. I have to drive myself. I have used every physical excuse not to work except fake illness. I have dawdled, gone to the toilet innumerable times, had many glasses of water. Really childish.” —John Steinbeck

“A crucial verb for writers is revise. Which means, of course, to re-see.” —Allan Gurganus

“I wanted to incorporate oil industry terminology and the names of specific sites, like Gate 7, The Slab, and Babikian Way.” Millicent Borges Accardi on writing her poem “Good Tank Farms.” buff.ly/i6R2fwQ

“Earl shaved off his mustache and looks so weird I couldn’t look at him. I really was practically faint looking at his completely changed face. He has such a little mouth.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I needed poetry to be my special, secret place. I suppose perhaps it was regarded as embarrassing to take things too seriously in my family.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

This limited-edition knit blanket is a rendition of the cover of issue no. 56 (Spring 1973), featuring Meditation on the Theorem of Pythagoras by Mel Bochner. buff.ly/0KoLJui

“What makes the autobiography autobiographical? It is already transposed, it is comic, it is tragic, it is poetic.” —Hélène Cixous buff.ly/zshigS4

“The hardest part about writing is the first hard keystroke, the first pen mark. It starts out slow—click, click—and then before long it is clicky-clicky and groan.” Millicent Borges Accardi on writing her poem “Good Tank Farms” in our Winter issue. buff.ly/i6R2fwQ

“My party was a terrible drag. The food was great but the guests were unbelievably draggy and there weren’t near enough of them. It was boring and embarrassing for me as well as them.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I really loved those monotonous jobs where you do eight hours of hedge trimming. Then I would sit under a lime tree to have my lunch and read Coleridge’s ‘This Lime-tree Bower my Prison.’ ” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“I thought, If they’re changing everything, now is the time to propose a doctorate that has never existed. I called it études féminines, a rough translation of ‘women’s studies.’ ” From our Art of Criticism interview with Hélène Cixous in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/zshigS4

“Tank farms are homey. They’re places to rest or hide out. A couple of guys might go out there in pairs and bullshit about the good old days, because the tank farm always looks the same.” Millicent Borges Accardi on writing her poem in our Winter issue. buff.ly/i6R2fwQ

“I’ve been practicing how to make the perfect omelet. They really taste fantastic with jack cheese surrounded by mandarin oranges. Oh, it’s so good.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I do think that my core impulse is the impulse of feeling a fool. But when you look at that foolishness there is also a sort of upspring of hope there somehow.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“I’ve always told people that all they have to do is read. But that’s the hardest thing to do.” From our Art of Criticism interview with Hélène Cixous in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/zshigS4

“They’re peaceful, and apart from the commotion of the rest of the refinery, in their own area, where it is unusually quiet and uninhabited. Still-full.” Millicent Borges Accardi on writing her poem “Good Tank Farms” in our Winter issue.

“Shit. I really wish Frank would behave—he almost gave me faith that you can be groovy and married.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

Start your day with a dose of literature and sign up for our poetry newsletter to receive an archival poem to your inbox every morning. buff.ly/DE3MOeP

“They went to the Tabernacle in their finery. Paul wore his stud earrings, blue jeans, and a white linen shirt open over a ribbed tank, his boots with their leaden heels clicking along the corridors.” From “The Junior Realtor” by Alec Niedenthal.

“I worked at the ARCO Carson refinery as a technical writer from 1992 to 1997, as well as for other refineries and oil-related companies such as BP, ampm, and ARCO Marine (oil tankers).” Millicent Borges Accardi on writing her poem in our Winter issue. buff.ly/i6R2fwQ

“He didn’t think it was funny when I told him what I wanted (i.e. to be good & beautiful or at least be in a state of grace, for God’s sake) and I didn’t mean it to be funny.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“What did I think about that? Nothing that I recall. About him, or her. It was a glimpse of an adult world so alien to me; what could I think?” From “A–Z” by Gwendoline Riley in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/shAu7vK

“I felt that my life, my existence, was animated, or that the animation in me was animal. I experienced emotions that were like the emotions of hens or dogs.” From our Art of Criticism interview with Hélène Cixous in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/zshigS4

“Neil never called. I will have to relinquish all my romantic notions and give up on him. I suppose I handled it badly, though heaven knows what handling anything well might be.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“I find that my mind is often in some kind of law court, either advocating for other creatures or things, or being tried.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“Comedy was a theatrical form Paul had never pursued; he had always been more serious, a tragedian, and so he appreciated comedy all the more because he believed that it couldn’t subject him to envy.” “The Junior Realtor” by Alec Niedenthal.

“You can write only if you know how to reflect endlessly, mathematically, asking yourself, What’s the name of this thing I am seeing and that I have never before seen? It takes time.” —Hélène Cixous buff.ly/zshigS4

“I am sitting under the hair dryer as I write this—determined to look beautiful tonight and not knowing what I will wear. I also don’t know what I’m going to have to drink, but I guess it will be sangria.” Eve Babitz’s journal in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“Once you’ve tasted what it is to memorize something, it’s quite addictive.” —Alice Oswald buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“Neil called before I went to Earl’s party. Thank heavens I had something to do, otherwise I would have let him come over, fuck me, and leave in .05 minutes. I just can’t see him anymore.” From Eve Babitz’s journal in our Winter issue. buff.ly/B9OTKrO

“As a writer you have to be willing to say, Yeah, that’s not good enough, over and over and over again.” —Maggie Nelson

“They are like men because they are isolated yet stand in the rain, surrounded by mounds of dirt and asphalt to catch spillover—” From “Good Tank Farms” by Millicent Borges Accardi in our new Winter issue.

“the tree that looks dead the longest the last to give bud is the white bone bleached one I call my ghost tree” From “Rooted Here” by Ed Roberson in our Winter issue. buff.ly/sFeKjcy

“Language itself has humor in it. I really like that flapping of words, where it’s like the wind gets into them and they kind of flap between meanings.” From our Art of Poetry interview with Alice Oswald in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/QNsju7Z

“I could say that I write the text, but it’s much more the case that the text writes me. It asks, Are you coming? And I reply, Yes, I am following you.” From our Art of Criticism interview with Hélène Cixous in our new Winter issue. buff.ly/zshigS4