It's better to be nominated for awards than not to be nominated for them, but of course to some degree such awards [National Book Award] are always subjective.

Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, "Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around.

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.

Literature is not an instruction manual.

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

In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

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.