Novels ought to have hope; at least, American novels ought to have hope. French novels don't need to. We mostly win wars, they lose them. Of course, they did hide more Jews than many other countries, and this is a form of winning.

The solution is always spiritual, and it almost never has anything to do with the problem ... laughter is carbonated holiness.

I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties.

I remember staring at my son endlessly when he was an infant, stunned by his very existence, wondering where on earth he had come from.

When what we see catches us off guard, and when we write it as realistically and openly as possible, it offers hope. You look around and say, Wow, there's that same mockingbird; there's that woman in the red hat again. The woman in the red hat is about hope because she's in it up to her neck, too, yet every day she puts on that crazy red hat and walks to town.

Life is really pretty tricky, and there's a lot of loss, and the longer you stay alive, the more people you lose whom you actually couldn't live without.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.