If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail.

And sometimes you do everything right and something bad just happens. It's as simple, and as scary, as that.

People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently.

There's a certain kind of conversation you have from time to time at parties in New York about a new book. The word "banal" sometimes rears its by-now banal head; you say "underedited," I say "derivative." The conversation goes around and around various literary criticisms, and by the time it moves on one thing is clear: No one read the book; we just read the reviews.

Obama doesn't seem like a burger and a beer kind of guy. I have to say, I don't find that problematic at all.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

However, there will be a Republican Party platform that will coalesce around their convention. Unless I miss my guess, it will be considerably more conservative on these issues, perhaps even than Governor Romney is, and I think that that will give Americans a clear set of choices about all issues, but about women's issues too.