Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us.

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.

It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.

Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.

My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.

Grace will follow us even when we are going the wrong way

And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on." Walter Lippmann.

[T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, "What are my big scenes?" and then get every drop of juice out of

Success is the brand on the brow of the man who aimed too low.

Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.

You can name your own salary in this business. I call mine Fred.

Auspicious coincidence is the right thing happening at the right time.

Happy people are poor psychologists.

When youre young, the blue blazer feels like a grown-up costume.