I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again.

When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.

As my mother once said to me, ‘They’re quite crazy, dear – men are. What you look for is one of them whose insanity is large enough, and calm and generous enough, to include you.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

Gainfully unemployed, very proud of it, too.

When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.

'Harry Potter' shouldn't be children's first experience with suspense and plot turns.

If you take anything that succeeded, just imagine it succeeding 10 years before or 10 years after, you could almost always make, with the same plausibility, the "it fit the times" argument.

The reason I drink is because when I'm sober I think I'm Eddie Fisher.

Knowledge is exploding, so you need to commit yourself to a plan for lifelong learning.

I was invited to photograph Hollywood. They asked me what I would like to photograph. I said, Ugly men.

Because the state can no longer protect us from crime, it wants to take away from us the means of protecting ourselves. This is the logic of gun control.

Your goal is not to know every detail of the future. Your goal is to hold the hand of the One who does and never, ever let go.

I use the term "fool's gold white space" to highlight a common problem for innovation. People see a market that doesn't exist, and assume that one should exist.

In all these years, you never believed I loved you. And I did. I did so much. I did love you. I even loved your hate and your hardness.