Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.

When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story.

Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.

Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

Criticism at the wrong time, even if it's legitimate criticism, can be seriously damaging and make the writer lose faith in what he's doing. It's the timing that's all-important.

Extend your commitment to your family members. Have respect for elders and be nice to them.they are your soft pillow

If I had the knackI'd sing likeCherry flakes falling

A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.

When I was a young actor... the more different you were from the part you played, the more talent it reflected.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

I can sleep. I love sleep; it's my favorite.

I don't order fries with my club sandwich.

I think lingerie plays a big part in how you carry yourself.

If only a group of people were more important to me than the idea of a Novel, I might begin a novel.

Popularity has slain more prophets of God than persecution ever did.