College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking.

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings.

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.

There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

Remember that the most important thing is to try and love other people as much as they love you.

Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.

I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

It's like she has her heart in her hand and it's broken. She's holding it out and showing me all the little pieces. Or maybe it's my heart.

I think part of me doesn't want to remember him, for fear of missing him too much.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.

Believe in the power of your own voice.

Teaching is the highest form of understanding.

The politicians in America are all taken over by the lobbyists. I really believe the lobbyists keep them shut up because China and Chinese companies have all got tremendous lobbyists.

I find it upsetting to see the erosion of manners. It's very scary. Where are the 'pleases' and 'thank yous?'

When we travel, we are like a film at the moment of exposure; it is memory that will develop it.

There's a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that's romance.

I think my parents - my parents were very hands-off, quite liberal in terms of their - they really - they did encourage me, but they never really pushed me into anything, really.