It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination - an inability to tolerate mistery.

It's similar to the way you feel cuddling an infant or a kitten, when you want to squeeze it so hard you'd kill it.

I don't write books for people to be friends with the characters. If you want to find friends, go to a cocktail party.

It's hard to resist the magical thinking that the work habits of great writers are the key to their greatness.

When I tried to do something else, everyone behaved as if I was Gypsy Rose Lee trying to paint a Matisse.

Always mind the distance between your dreams and your reality.

...what is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends , there's nothing left.