To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.

When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world

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.

Global warming is more of a blessing than a curse.

Irony ... may be defined as what people miss.

To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.

Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults.