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

The lives great artists live and the books they write are two very different things.

Youth is the only sexy tragedy. It's James Dean jumping into his Porsche Spyder, it's Marilyn heading off to bed.

Oh, all you immigrants and visionaries, what do you hope to find here, who do you hope to become?

She thinks how much more space a being occupies in life than it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in gestures and movements, in breathing. Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest.

Insomniacs know better than anyone how it would be to haunt a house.

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.