I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

I was fortunate to get a lot of mileage out of my vices . . . The point is not to be debilitated by your pleasures. Maybe I have lucky genes or something but I've never been truly addicted to anything, except pleasure in general.

You keep thinking that with practice you will eventually get the knack of enjoying superficial encounters, that you will stop looking for the universal solvent, stop grieving. You will learn to compound happiness out of small increments of mindless pleasure.

Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I'm not like that.

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed

Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing