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.

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

Time is the most extraordinary gift for friendship. You'll get to eat your meals together and study together; in some cases you'll even sleep in the same room. You'll have time to waste on each other. You'll find out every single thing you have in common and still have time to catalogue all of your differences. Don't underestimate the vital necessity of friendship in your life because it is the thing that will sustain you later, when there will be considerably less time.

When I am emperor, I will abolish private education. Private schools, private college. All of these parents with money and energy and the drive for bake sales and a desire to leave their vast fortunes to education - everybody would have to be eating out of the same educational pot.

My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.

I'm very sentimental about lobsters. The last lobster I ate was the only lobster I cooked.

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