I think it's one of the reasons I wrote my book later in life. My parents didn't have these extreme alternations of conduct. They were very sweet to me.

We write out of revenge against reality, to dream and enter the lives of others.

One learns much more by writing fiction, because the insights come from those deeper subconscious levels where the greater and more interesting truths lie.

Americans and their desire to be novelists, the American novel should be listed in medical dictionaries alongside Megalomania and Obsessional Neuroses.

Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make your life bearable.

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams?

I shall never cease to marvel at the way we beg for love and tyranny.

All our parents have levels of deviousness. We're driven to write about this discrepancy between the bright shining selves they invented and the monsters lurking underneath.

Art is both a vengeance against reality and a reconciliation with it.

I venture that those of us who are most serene when faced with the possibility of nothingness are the ones who've reached furthest to the downward and upward of their beings.

As to why people like Joseph Lelyveld are writing memoirs, I think they're just catching on the coattails of the trend.

i am a woman and i am alone, and i cannot tell which one of the twoi love being more.

If there is wrong [ill] on the inside, the outside will appear wrong. Therefore, you should inquire within ‘why am I bothered, when others are not? So there must be wrong within me only.

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

We've put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it.

I don't even like holding them. Whenever I hold a gun, I want to get it out of my hand as quick as possible.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that's beyond the practicality of what I can do.

Morality consists of suspecting other people of not being legally married.

... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.

Don't be afraid to show emotion. Get excited, get angry, get motivated, laugh, cry, yell, and vent. You will feel so much better after a great release.

The artist must be ecstatic about something.