Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn’t last long in nature. They’re too conspicuous.

It used to be that your bloodlines dictated who you were. But the U.S. became the land of the self-made man, in which not only did you make a fortune but you could make up everything else about yourself as well. You move into a new town with a spurious pedigreed background and you just make yourself up.

The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.

Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing.

I tried to visualize my jealousy as a yellowy-brown cloud boiling around inside me, then going out through my nose like smoke and turning into a stone and falling down into the ground. That did work a little. But in my visualization a plant covered with poison berries would grow out of the stone, whether I wanted it to or not.

Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.