“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.”

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.

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.

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?

The experience of being understood, versus interpreted, is so compelling you can charge admission.

Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood.

Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It’s the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.

Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood.

In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. All energy is the same as mechanical energy, whether it exists in the form of motion or in that of elasticity, or in any other form. The energy in electromagnetic phenomena is mechanical energy.

Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine. Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence.

The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature.

As an athlete, I understood the value of my health insurance. I knew that in my profession, injuries were common and could happen at any time.