I measure my life out in books." "You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn't be measuring your life. What's the point?

Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate.

I've discovered over the years that the simplest explanation is almost always the right one; and that hunger of one kind or another - desire, by another name - is the source of almost every sorrow.

That's so her. You know, torn between Big Ideas and a party. She's always been that way.

To my mind, Guernica is the most important online intellectual and literary journal in America today.

Geniuses have the shortest biographies.

It doesn't ever occur to you, as you fashion your mask so carefully, that it will grow into your skin and graft itself, come to seem irremovable.

We read to find life, in all its possibilities.

I was funny -- ha-ha, not peculiar. It was a modest currency, like pennies: pedestrian, somewhat laborious, but a currency nonetheless. I was funny, in public, most often at my own expense.

I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of an angry woman.

Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world.

The main purpose of life is not just to live, but to search within to discover your true positive self.

All that is gold does not glitter...

Heavy rains and a good book. A perfect extravagance.

Gentlemen, that is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the truth.

I’ve decided to pick my moment to retire very carefully – in about 200 years’ time.

The earlier you start, the easier it is to accumulate major wealth. Still, it's never really too late to begin.

Be strong. Don't be a follower. Always do the right thing.

I began to measure things in absence instead of presence.

For many people, food is a source of comfort, connection, and control.