Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.

And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.

I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.

New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.

Reality television, which turned its eye on people who were doing nothing but being themselves, was the perfect expression of this trend [of narcissism]. Let's look at ourselves, it said. Aren't we fascinating?