Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

It's magical thinking to imagine that the reason unspeakable things are being perpetrated by younger and younger people is that they've fallen under the influence of seductive, lascivious, prurient, and violent material in books, films, television. A great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.

You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.

Dan suggested to Owen and me that we were better off to not involve ourselves with Hester. How true! But how we wanted to be involved in the thrilling real-life sleaziness that we suspected Hester was in the thick-of. We were in a phase, through television and the movies, of living only vicariously. Even faintly sordid silliness excited us if it put us in contact with love.