The images, the language, of pornography, and romance are alike; monotonous and mechanically seductive, quickly leading to despair.

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they're gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you're going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolor everything like a drop of black ink in white milk.

Speculation can be more gentle, can take its time, when it is not driven by desire.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, and unfathomable – deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.

Because if she let go of her grief even for a minute it would only hit her harder when she bumped into it again.