There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

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.

You described the feeling you’d always had of being misplaced, of always standing to one side of yourself, of watching yourself in the world even as you were being in the world, and wondering if this was how everyone felt. That you always believed that other people had a clearer idea of what they were doing, and didn’t worry quite so much about why.

Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so.

Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.

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

I don't want to have my life fall apart for my work.