It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially..

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?.

After all, the appeal to stop being yourself, even for a little while, is very great.

I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones..

When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a flickering sun-struck instance that existed now and forever. Only occa….

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside ….

Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us..

And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at….

Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it..

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken f….

I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there..

And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘rea….

Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality..

Everything takes me longer than I expect. It's the sad truth about life.

The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to entertain, to make things up. The art of what I do lies not in researc….

The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room….

Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness..

It is easy to see things in retrospect. But I was ignorant then of everything but my own happiness, and I don’t know what else to say except that lif….

Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale..

Sometimes it's about playing a poor hand well..

Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you..