Dying was apparently a weaning process; all the attachments to familiar people and objects have to be undone.

It had been fourteen years and I hadn't had anything published. I had 250 rejection slips. I got my first novel published and it was called Kinflicks. It turned out to be a best seller.

The French would eat anything that couldn't outrun them.

The human organism has only so much energy at its disposal. If you divert a great deal of it into any one channel, you can expect the others to collapse or atrophy. If you squander your vital energies on your emotional life, as you have been doing, plan to be physically and mentally bankrupt, as it were.

That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along.

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease.

The strength you've insisted on assigning to others is actually within yourself.