I just don't feel much interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Venture too far for love, she tells herself, and you renounce citizenship in the country you've made for yourself.

As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.

I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.

You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.

These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody's little display of genius.

What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run.