My goal in life is to become an adjective.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be.

Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.

You can tell when something's not moving forward anymore. When the doubts you have about it don't go away.

Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.