Then you must say to her, 'Madame, I observe that your heart is broken. Allow me to repair it for you.

I wasn't brought up to be dazzled by money or fame.

It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.

Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing.

Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light.

Boys mystified me, although I dreamed vaguely of men.

It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.