She said that her father's death had been the hardest thing in her life. "We are all children until our fathers die.

The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the girl grows up. On the last page, the couple gets married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.

You will say good-bye for all the right reasons. You're tired of living in wait for his apocalypse. You have your own fight on your hands, and though it's no bigger or more noble than his, it will require all of your energy. It's you who has to hold on to earth. You have to tighten your grip -- which means letting go of him.

Olive Kitteridge' is a masterpiece: The writing is so perfect you don't even notice it; the story is so vivid it's less like reading a story than experiencing it firsthand.

Basically, all anyone has to do is ask me for fun details or tell me to be creative, and my mind turns to mud. I am instantly the most boring person you've ever met.

I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

The only relationships I haven't wrecked right away were the ones that wrecked me later.