My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.

I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I've never stopped writing since.

Perhaps when we're forced to forfeit what we own, we lose any sentimental associations. Perhaps pawning our valuables frees us in the same way a house fire destroys not only our worldly goods, but our attachment to what's gone.

Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.

I only get writer's block about once a day.

There was an author who titled his books by days of the weeks and another one that used colors. Then there was Edward Gorey who wrote the book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, about the untimely death of 26 Victorian children, each representing a letter of the alphabet. I thought what a great way to link the titles.