There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

People may not see you the way you see yourself. But, that's because they don't want to acknowledge your uniqueness. Jealousy is not disguised.

I lean down so that my face is right in front of hers and whisper, ‘He doesn’t love you. I love you.

I hope, ” he replies softly, “to get to know you again. If you are open to it. There is a fog around you that I would like to clear away.

We all know that Americans love their statistics - in sport, obviously. And in finance too.

Every song I put on a record could be a single and I just pack my bags for it... and the minute it takes off, I'm not gonna be home for a while.

There is no such thing as collective guilt.

Pity goes hand in hand with contempt. Don't ever forget that, Liberty. You can't take handouts or help from anyone, because that gives people the right to look down on you.

A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.

I say to my team all the time that this is how I grew up: Always thinking that, at any minute, I could be unemployed. You have to scramble. You have to work hard and get ahead of things.

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.