“It annoys the hell out of me when people say, This is the kitchen, and this is the bathroom. What am I, Helen Keller? I mean, it’s pretty obvious when you’re in a kitchen and when you’re not.”

People should pay more attention. Everyone wants attention, but no one wants to give attention.

I am very interested in loyalty, even if the person to whom one is loyal is flawed, criminal, or otherwise in the wrong.

I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud.

It’s my policy not to review funerals.

Sometimes you can do things for others that you can’t do for yourself.

If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.

A lot of people get flipped out if you’re quiet. They say stuff like, What are you thinking? And if they don’t start interrogating you, they start talking, going on and on about stuff that’s totally irrelevant, and the silence gets so big and loud that it’s scary.

Books tell you more about their owners than the owners do.

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable.

You really can’t write well if you’re thinking about what the reviewers might say.

I’m very interested in compassion – compassion for oneself and others. I write about very complicated characters and experiences and try to do it without judging the character or the action.

I’m nothing you can catch now. I am black powder, I am singe, I am the bomb that bursts the night.

I’d say our ability to supersize emotions are American-made special effects. In European countries, people mostly stay close to home and whatever rage there is simmers under the surface – it’s what made the plays of Shakespeare and Harold Pinter so good.

Was this the big one or was this the small tremor, the warning? Does it get better – does the sensation of being in a dream underwater go away?

You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.

No one can be so welcome a guest that he will not become an annoyance when he has stayed three continuous days in a friend’s house.

The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.

Ah! how annoying that the law doesn’t allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.

Days when I have things to say but have no idea how to pit them out there – are the most annoying.

I think I’m the kind of person who would be very difficult to employ – I’m pretty annoying, but driven.

Nothing annoys me more than having the most trivial action analyzed and explained.

I usually don’t like to annoy people in asking to work with them.