Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you are running neck and neck. It will vastly improve the quality of your own life, the lives of others, and the state of the world.

I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.

Our friendship was like our writing in some ways. It was the only thing that was interesting about our otherwise dull lives. We were better off when we were together. Together we were a small society of ambition and high ideals. We were tender and patient and kind. We were not like the world at all.

It's easier to love a woman when you can't understand a word she's saying.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.

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.

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