Try to get your characters into interesting trouble. Allow your characters to misbehave. Let them stay out after 11.

I prefer short stories, but publishers would, of course, rather that writers produce novels, since novels are still more commercially viable.

You know, there's something heartsick about parties like this. Look at us. We're all pretending to be smart, as if intelligence were the cure for our anguish.

It's my feeling that any writer can get an emotion into a story without being sentimental as long as the emotion is dealt with honestly, with sufficient clarity, and detail.

You think that what I've told you is an anecdote. But really it isn't. It's my whole life. It's the only story I have.

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

The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.