There aren't many shy writers left.

If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy.

Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

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

Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did.

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