She say guilt is a useless emotion." "Oh, please," says Nancy. "Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living in the town.

Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.

The one thing that I always got positive reinforcement for from teachers, who really changed my life, was the written word.

I haven't seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were askedthis week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company's behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.

All of life like a series of tableaux, and in the living we missed so much, hid so much, left so much undone and unsaid.

All of the qualities that you need to be a good opinion columnist tend to be qualities that aren't valued in women.