There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

In novels, I said, people are transfigured by love. They’re elevated, made different, lifted out of their ordinariness…It’s not so much to ask, I said. I just want love to live up to its publicity.

Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.