I think when you see [Donald] Trump in person, my reaction is you kind of enjoy it. It's kind of an enjoyable night out.
The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable.
I think about how truly interesting and odd it is that when a woman marries, traditionally she loses her name, becoming absorbed by the husband's family name - she is in effect lost, evaporated from all records under her maiden name. I finally understand the anger behind feminism - the idea that as a woman you are property to be conveyed between your father and your husband, but never an individual who exists independently. And on the flip side, it is also one of the few ways one can legitimately get lost - no one questions it.
You really can't write well if you're thinking about what the reviewers might say.
What draws me to family. . . if I were a psychiatrist, I'd say an enormous amount of unresolved personal material. If I were an anthropologist, I'd say families are at the root of social structures - they shape our identity, our belief systems - and so I find them fascinating. Also, I love the idea that families have narratives that are essentially the family story that is passed along generation to generation - and the rifts start when people question the story.
If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.
Books tell you more about their owners than the owners do.
Nothing so clears the vision and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord.
The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy.
Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.
Instead of talking at each other about the non-business-related contact, talk to each other about your concerns about marriage. Listen a lot, too.