The sound of words in a novel is a pretty amazing thing, and I am concerned with the sound of every word I write.

I was then at the height of my two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true.

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.

An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

The families of rabbits or woodchucks will eat the salad greens just before they are ready to be picked; I plot ways to kill these animals but can never bring myself to do it.

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.