As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about.

Ideas come to people who are receptive to them.

As a friend of mine, herself a writer, says, 'People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange'

Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day.

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.

I've always essentially been a New Yorker.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.