the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.

part of the problem with a war on poverty today is that many Americans have decided that being poor is a character defect, not an economic condition.

The pursuit of otherness, the sense that we are somehow different than our brothers and sisters, no matter where we find them, allows for all the other great evils: racism, sexism, homophobia, violence against gay people and against women.

Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center. ... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality.

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.

You can get rid of the column. It's a little like staying at a hotel; you get used to the shape of the room, and then you're gone. With a novel you move into town and stay for a long time. That's both comforting and terrifying.

I think the very best thing about the internet is that I can read all the London papers every day if I want to.