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

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.

Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did.

Arianna, hold on! I’m coming!” I yell as I watch the life leave her eyes and she falls to the ground.“NO!” I scream as my eyes fly open.

If you aren't living on the edge you're taking up too much room. Anon.

Sometimes the best choice is to wait.

Coffee is to wake up, coffee is to work with, coffee is to live with, coffee is life

...it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

The swan is not without cause dedicated to Apollo, because foreseeing his happiness in death, he dies with singing and pleasure.

If you feel glamorous, you definitely look glamorous.

We find real joy when we keep the Savior the focus of the season.

A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.