I think there are readers out there and I don't think the book is dead. And more importantly I don't think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.

When the news you don't want to hear is looming before you like Everest, two things can happen. Tragedy can run you through like a sword, or it can become your backbone. Either you fall apart and sob, or you say, 'Right. What's next?

The bottom line in both cases is that people don't change; that no matter how charming you are and how fiercely you love, you cannot turn a person into something she's not.

She had never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess.

You want to write something as good as what you've read.

Sometimes, all it takes to become human again is someone who can see you that way, no matter how you present on the surface.

To me gay rights is the last civil right that we have not granted in America and I think it's an enormous embarrassment.