The worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.

I don't think that most women have to prove that they're real women. You live long enough, you graduate to being real.

There's nothing to talk about to strangers anymore, if you know what I mean. Everything I want to say, I say to her.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

When blame has been assigned, the story is over.

A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.

Literature is not an instruction manual.