I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.

Home, bed, sleep, mother--who knew more beautiful words than these?

If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them.

Maybe there would be a bad outcome for some of the others, but no one was going to shoot a soprano.

I certainly have written a lot about police in my life, and it's not only something that I know about, but always something that interests me.

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.

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.