I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world.

Why do analysts always answer a question with a question?

There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.

I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

the unconscious of an artist is her greatest treasure. It is what transmutes the dross of autobiography into the gold of myth.

each of us only feels the torn lining of his own coat and sees the wholeness of the other person's.

No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.