A lot of politics in art is just institutional critique, which, in my opinion, is not all that political.

Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim.

To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something.

I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.

I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

People who want their love easy don't really want love.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

It's amazing how life conspires to set you up with what you need.

A funny thing about women and machines: the combination made men curious.

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground.

The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum.

Actually, I am a coward. I say only what is safe to say, and I criticise only what is permissable to criticise.

The more you know, the more you know you know nothing.

There are never beginnings and endings in my work; everything just fits into place after a while.

Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth.

I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.

Don't look at people like they're fools. I don't want to be misunderstand...and I don't want to be a fool again.

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

Man who invented the hamburger was smart; man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.

High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.