Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.

There will always be non-readers, bad readers, lazy readers - there always were.

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.

It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.

Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

There's nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.