Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

I don't inflict horrors on readers.

I have a very serious censorship office inside my head; it censors things that I could tell you that you would never forget, and I don't want to be the person to stick that in your brain.

I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.

You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said

I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.