Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning.

In the same way the Brits had to get used to the idea that the sun had set on the British Empire, I think that there's the subrosa feeling that we are at the end of the American century, and I think that's very, very hard for Americans to take.

I think I'm like most novelists in that my books have gotten farther and farther away from autobiography the longer I've been writing them.

I believe that in a contest between the living and the almost living, the latter must, if necessary, give way to the will of the former.

My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.

Jail sentences have many functions, but one is surely to send a message about what our society abhors and what it values. This week, the equation was twofold: female infidelity twice as bad as male abuse, the life of a woman half as valuable as that of a man. The killing of the woman taken in adultery has a long history and survives today in many cultures. One of those is our own.

If I waited long enough and said, "Okay, so what you're saying is you liked your life a lot better when you were 30?" everybody would get real quiet and then admit that that wasn't the case, that they really felt like they were sort of growing into themselves in a way.