There is much to be said for solitude.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.

I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can work.

We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.