In novels, I said, people are transfigured by love. Theyโre elevated, made different, lifted out of their ordinarinessโฆItโs not so much to ask, I said. I just want love to live up to its publicity.
Anatole BroyardTo be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.
Anatole BroyardThere are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.
Anatole BroyardSex almost always disappoints me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that's what I often find: everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity.
Anatole Broyard