I think the best vacation is the one that relieves me of my own life for a while and then makes me long for it again.

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.

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

I tend to keep my ideas in my head. When I write something down in a notebook it's never centralized. There are too many notebooks floating around, but maybe that's a good thing.

Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.

We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three people.