While in a vintage restaurant..."the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.

When a man is attacked in print, it's usually for saying what he says; when a woman is attacked in print, it's often for being who she is.

Remember,' she'd tell her staff, 'every customer wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing.

I suppose these deadlines we set for ourselves are really a way of saying we appreciate time, and want to use all of it.

Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift; if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.