I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness.

I don't want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

There will be water if God wills it.

The idea for a novel is like a little tiny fire in a dark night. And, one by one, the characters come and stand around it and warm their hands.

It wasn't just love that held people together. There was secrets, and the price you paid to keep them.

Somebody asked Somerset Maugham about his place in the pantheon of writers, and he said, "I'm in the very front row of the second rate." I'm sort of haunted by that.

He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.