I dream of writing a book like LOVERS some day. It is so spare but so rich. It is history made intimate, and a masterpiece of compression.

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being.

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion.

A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

Intellectually, we may appreciate that loving ourselves would give us a firm foundation but for most of us this is a leap of logic, not a leap of the heart.

Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful.

Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

Reprove your friends in secret praise them openly.

I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

It's hard not to tell the truth with a camera. Artists are particularly good at that.

Kids come up to me all the time and say, 'Once I was going through a really bad time, and I saw you crash and get up, and it inspired me.'

Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness

I'm not against anybody having gone [to Donald Trump's inauguration], but, for me, it was not the right place to be.

My appetite comes to me while eating.