We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

It had never occurred to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected.

I'm a complete and utter fiction. Then again, we all are.

Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get.

...and it strikes her, as she walks, that borders, like hatred, are exaggerated precisely because otherwise they would cease to exist altogether.

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

If you sort of see yourself writing into a space that you don't always recognize, you sometimes learn things that you knew, but weren't entirely aware of. It's very liberating for a writer to go into a space where she or he has not gone before, because, instead of being a tourist, you're like an explorer now, and you're sort of lost in this new idea.