New York is ultimately not the synthesis but merely the sum of its unfathomable subjectivities, its personal histories, its uncategorisable figures.

I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people.

You never want to have to give your child bad news of any kind.

Another big moment in terms of that feeling was David Petraeus: if the director of the CIA can't get away with having a secret relationship, then what hope do you have? It's not really an original idea, but there's something that goes along with power and celebrity that starts to make you feel like you're impervious to certain forces that the rest of us have to live with.

Those who know New York City primarily through tourism or mass culture may think of us natives as possessing certain shared characteristics, not all of them flattering. But the true, volatile charisma of New York lies in how balkanised it is.

I don't want to make it sound too much like I'm telling people how to read the book A Thousand Pardons, but what Ben Armstead is doing, he's doing more or less on purpose as a very elaborate way of making a sacrifice in his personal life. He needs to start over. This is how he chooses to do it - by blowing up where he is.

Kenneth Branagh. There was a time in my life when people would tell me constantly that I look like him. I could do a lot worse than that.