A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.

I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.

I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed.

We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets.

What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was damned if I could find it.

I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.

Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive.

Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.

If you stepped out of the shower and saw a leprechaun standing at the base of your toilet, would you scream, or would you innately understand that he meant you no harm?

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.

You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.

We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail.

If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.

Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.

All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.

But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.

Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.