You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas something like Jaws winds up having a huge effect on me. If only my parents had been taking me to Kurosawa films when I was eight, but no.

It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.

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

Some people need a huge amount of attention, and they are worthy of that attention, and they're still exhausting.

I am sure every writer has this and probably every newscaster, that people are always coming up to me and saying, my daughter wants to do what you do, my godson, my tennis partner.

Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings.

Happiness compresses time, makes it dense and bright, pocketsized.