Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.

The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.

Time cures you first, and then it kills you.

High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.

This is how Americans think. You believe that if something terrible happens to someone, they must have deserved it.

The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.