I think most memoirs, though they purport to be about this particular time or this person you met, are really about the effect that person or time had on you.

I, for one, find writing excruciating. Some mornings, as I'm on my way to my desk, my hands actually tremble with fear. The fear, of course, is that I'll sit down at the desk and discover that what I've written is claptrap. Fear inevitably leads to procrastination.

I fear that my mind would starve and that I might find myself in danger if I had no visual information, that it's chiefly the light, the shapes, the spaces, the colors that I see that compel me to keep moving forward in life and that keep me safe.

I've rarely met a miserable, self-pitying blind person.

Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.