The hardest piece of nonfiction I ever wrote isn't anywhere close to the easiest piece of fiction I never wrote.

Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.

If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

People gave me such a bad time about wanting a baby. I didn't want a baby, and I still don't. I wanted a dog.

She sang as if she was saving the life of every person in the room.

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappointment them, or, if they do, the owners manages to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.