All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.

Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure.

I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.

She was lonely without Blunt, but she was lonelier at the idea that the world went on as though she had not loved him.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Life isn't something you possess, it's something you take part in.

Certain actions bring harm, other more wizened actions bring harmony.

My taste tends to skew a little bit towards the more feminine. Monique Lhuillier, Oscar de la Renta. Some of his wedding dresses in particular have been spectacular.

What is deeper is warmer. When you’re looking for what is deeper, add warmth.

When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything--clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden.

Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don't understand the concept.

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls.