We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three people.

Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right.

If I was a waitress, I was too tired at the end of the day when I came home to try to write.

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

Maybe the private life wasn't forever. Maybe everyone got it for a little while and then spent the rest of their lives remembering.

I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.

That's one of the many things about having the bookstore that I adore. I can walk into the store and say to somebody, "I'm glad you're reading this book" or "I'm glad you're getting this book" or "Don't get that book. I read that book and hated that book. Let's get you this book instead."