Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.

I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

In December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known.

Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.