The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.

She missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed people. She missed human intrigue, drama and power struggles. She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness.

I believe it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you can find something concrete to keep you busy while you are living your meaningless life.

The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.

When I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.

I think that if we don't learn to inhabit other people's perspectives, then we're never going to understand why people do what they do.

Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.