I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen.

The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.

The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child.

Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.