Even happy situations can easily start to feel miserable. So, I think that people who consider themselves sophisticated or who are in fact sophisticated have come to distrust stories that are uplifting or simply stories in which the characters get what they want in the end. Because in life, what you want is never the end.

Somebody once said to me if you want to be understood, don't write fiction.

I think if a woman is very happy with herself and at ease with her choices, it goes a long way toward making other people feel at ease with her.

But now all the natural secrets have been exposed, and it is likely that the turtles have been sold to laboratory scientists who want to remove their shells so that they can wire electrodes to the turtles' skin in order to monitor their increasing terror at the loss of their shells.

Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct.

I think a woman who commits adultery, is not sympathetic in our culture - or in many cultures, let's face it.

He had lunch with Cecilia that afternoon. They ate their corned beef on rye and cream cheese with lox in a diner peopled by waiters who looked like they´d met with utter disappointment and become attached to it.