A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if hes any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.

There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be.

we become the stories we tell ourselves

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.

Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

Take me with you. I want a doomed love. I want streets at night, wind and rain, no one wondering where I am.

That is what I want to tell you about: the girls with their short skirts and bright eyes and big-city dreams.The girls of 1929.

Working smarter is learning to prioritize, plan, and focus our energies with meaningful intent.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The Right's view of government and the Left's view of big business are both correct.

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture.

Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.

When public figures think they can open a business even though they've got no business experience, it's a bad idea.

I just get inspired to take a picture by the beauty and vulnerability of my friends.

Nintendo DS is not standing still. As a tenth serious competitor decides to make a run at Game Boy, DS raises the bar on portable gaming, before they even get started.