"The first year it sank in how far over my head I was. The next two years were '79 and '80, and I was really unhappy. I thought I was in a cave and I couldn't get out. It was just too big a thing.

The funny thing is that you get to a certain point and you can't quit. Because I always worried: if you quit, you'll quit again. The only way out was to go forward, to learn your way and write your way out of it."

John McPhee from a Paris Review interview