I find that when I come out of the library I'm in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.

The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there's a lack of resolution.

I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.

Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.

Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.