Memories lurk like dustballs in the backs of drawers. The stereo is a special model that plays only music fraught with poignant associations.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy.

Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

If we all discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to tell them that they loved them.

The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.

From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.

I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took group photographs of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration.

Success is the difference between where you are and where you could be

I don't have too much time to jam with the rest of Hollywood.

Humans. Sometimes they make chimps look smart.

Some people who are creative are not reliable and vice versa; some see big pictures while others see details, etc. All of them are important to have on well-orchestrated teams.

Concerning politics: "The American media is like a watchdog who has developed an affection for the burglar."