She sat keenly white and still among them, a witness to everything--maybe determining nothing, possibly judging it all.

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.

I always know more about the ending, even the aftermath to the ending, than I know about the beginning. And so there's a construction that works from back to front.

I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.

A personal injustice is stronger motivation than any instinct for philanthropy.

Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.

Our memory is a monster; you forget it - it does not.