I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.

She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence.

It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.

When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.

We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.

It seems to me,' said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, 'that you have tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that.' Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

Each couple is its own vaudeville act.