I think it's dangerous to think you know what you're writing. I usually don't know, and usually I just discover it in the course of writing. I envy those writers who can outline a beginning, a middle, and end. Fitzgerald supposedly did it. John Irving does. Bret Easton Ellis does. But for me, the writing itself is the process of discovery. I can't see all that far ahead.

When you catch yourself lying to your therapist, you know it's a waste of money.

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

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

Bottles of wine aren't like paintings. At some point you have to consume them. The object in life is to die with no bottles of wine in your cellar. To drink your last bottle of wine and go to sleep that night and not wake up.

I'm a romantic; you have to be to marry four times.