At its best, fiction is not a diversion but a means of knowing the world.

When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.

As my mother once said to me, ‘They’re quite crazy, dear – men are. What you look for is one of them whose insanity is large enough, and calm and generous enough, to include you.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

Gainfully unemployed, very proud of it, too.

When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.

We cannot change the history of the past.

Seek and see beauty in the watery world.

Manchester United might not win Premier League every year, but we'd always be up there competing for it every year.

The magic of property turns sand to gold.

What's happened is the Republicans have been smart.

In high school, I would drive my teachers batty. They would make a statement, and I would say, 'Why is that?' They didn't want to be questioned.

It's important not to take all this fashion stuff too seriously, and I kind of love the idea of cheesiness.

If we can exit a relationship, pressure to reconcile lessens; if we must live with those who have wronged us, we are pushed to reconcile.

We need to learn to know Him so well that we feel safe when we have left our difficulties with Him. To know in that way is a prerequisite of all true prayer.

Anybody who can step out of the house with a pair of heels and some lipstick on their lips is my hero.