What starts love is your ability to stupefy and blind yourself to the point of being able to fall in love. What stops it is waking up.

I don't care if New York avoided bankruptcy by substituting tourism for the garment business.

The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.

I'd like to decide who comes here. I'd like to be the admissions director of New York.

It's very disheartening to encounter a fearful twenty-one year old. They haven't earned the right to be that afraid. It's not like we're living in war-torn Bosnia or something.

Your grandparents did not endure the indignities of a steerage journey to Ellis Island so that you could stand outside a discothèque and beg a wallpaper designer to take you in with him.

I don't like the kind of country living where you have to help. I like country living where there is help.