She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.

Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.

They were bound for college, husbands, child-rearing, unhappiness only dimly perceived- bound, in other words, for life.

On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.

Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with a nineteenth century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then too there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men.

our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

I don’t know what you’re feeling, I won’t even pretend