I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

It’s like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It’s still there, but the sharpest edges are .. muffled, sort of. Then, ever now and then, I lift the corner of the blanket just to check, and .. whoa! Like a knife! I’m not sure that will ever change.

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.

Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to yourself. Which calls for details; any good lie does.

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.