New Orleans is one of the two most ingrown, self-obsessed little cities in the United States. (The other is San Francisco.)

I married him against all evidence. I married him believing that marriage doesn't work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.

... the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book is one of the main reasons I read; but it doesn't happen every time or even every other time, and when it does happen, I am truly beside myself.

Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (Although there’s no question a belief in God would come in handy. It would be great to think there’s a plan, and that everything happens for a reason. I don’t happen to believe that. And every time one of my friends says to me, “Everything happens for a reason,” I would like to smack her.)

It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them. I mean we've all read pieces where we thought, 'Oh, who gives a damn.'

There are plenty of men who philander during the summer, to be sure, but they are usually the same lot who philander during the winter - albeit with less convenience.

Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it.