One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.

Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person.

I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).

I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

It is my belief that everything you need to know about the world can be learned in a church choir.

Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?

I have great faith in the future of books - no matter what form they may take - and of science fiction.

Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.

To do something for someone or something you loved-England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history-wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.

Writers are too neurotic to ever be happy.

We will be stronger, if we love each other.

Pessimistic thoughts will only yield trees unwilling to bear edible fruit. Optimistic thinking will always feed those who are willing to sit at your table".

Morality without kindness is the most dangerous weapon.

I thought of the nameless inventor of the bathtub. I was somehow sure it was a woman. And was the inventor of the bathtub plug a man?

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age.

If thou dost still retain the same ill habits, the same follies, too, still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.

Strive to accomplish the very best you are capable of. Nothing less than your best effort will suffice.

People cannot be molded like clay.

The cinema is an explosion of my love for reality.

I'm not a betting woman, but I have $50 on Secretariat with an old director friend of mine.