It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.

You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap—I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.

You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.

Ever since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home.

How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.