All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.

Life is an X-rated soap opera.

but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar material—but I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called ‘good students’ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process?

I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.