Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.

The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.

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.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

People ... have no idea what a hard job it is for two writers to be friends. Sooner or later you have to talk about each other's work.