When people are frightened about going hungry and paying their mortgages, a scarcity model begins to prevail; they fear someone else will get their piece of the pie.

I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window.

I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.

Those first few weeks are an unearthly season. From the outside you remain so ordinary, no one can tell from looking that you have experienced an earthquake of the soul. You've been torn asunder, invested with an ancient, incomprehensible magic. It's the one thing that we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.

The happiest people are the ones with the most community.

Quit smoking in the hope of growing old. It takes a long time to write. People go to books for wisdom and older authors tend to have more of it.

Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.