...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life.

The problem with making a virtual world of oneself is akin to the problem with projecting ourselves onto a cyberworld: there’s no end of virtual spaces in which to seek stimulation, but their very endlessness, the perpetual stimulation without satisfaction, becomes imprisoning.

And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?

I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder.

It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council.

You see more sitting still than chasing after.

Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society—to help solve our contemporary problems—seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: isn't this enough? Isn't it a lot?