We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.

We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

You must be careful when you ask people whether they’re happy

Well-meant techniques such as arbitrary self-mortification, are useless.

Carrie doesn't seem to talk about anything with sharp edges. Maybe she's afraid they might poke her and then she'd burst.

Of all mad matches never was the likeBeing mad herself, she’s madly mated.

Any real Bob Dylan fan would sleep with Jonah Lehrer.

I sow; my successor reaps. This is the majesty of democracy.

If Bono left, we could carry on. If I left, we'd be screwed.

A bird, music and food -desert island items

How did it come to be that you think men and women are the same? Well, there's a simple answer to the question: Feminism.

When some people retire, it's going to be mighty hard to be able to tell the difference.