The more she thought about it, the more Madeleine understood that extreme solitude didn't just describe the way she was feeling about Leonard. It explained how she'd always felt when she was in love. It explained what love was like and, just maybe, what was wrong with it.

The ideas for my books come about in two ways. There can be an intellectual idea that seems to be the reason for writing the book. [...] The other motive is unconscious. There is something deeply psychological and emotional that draws me to the material in the first place.

It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'

The only way we know it's true is that we both dreamed it. That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

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