Virginia Woolf's great novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway,' is the first great book I ever read. I read it almost by accident when I was in high school, when I was 15 years old.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.

There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be.

we become the stories we tell ourselves

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.

Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

Take me with you. I want a doomed love. I want streets at night, wind and rain, no one wondering where I am.

Every symbol, word, concept, discipline and field is only a temporary rest stop on the highway of discovery.

To fish in troubled waters.

There may be people who have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do - and I believe that.

You know what I hate the most? People that imitate owls.

Philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.

Graves are for the living, not the dead. It gives us something to concentrate on instead of the fact that our loved one is rotting under the ground.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

Wanting an honest opinion about my art from someone whose opinion I respect makes me feel vulnerable. It's a great space to be in.

To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.

I have a large sea shell collection which I keep scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen it.