After puberty, you look to one sex for more than friendship and to the other for less-than-complete intimacy.

Arthur Conan Doyle was entranced by the notion of a brilliant detective who can deduce everything a stranger has been up to from the merest clue, and yet can't have a trusting relationship with his closest friend.

To me, people's lives and loves are entwined with their characters, natures and circumstances. I regard all general advice with skepticism.

New York is a much more bourgeois city, more of a tourist attraction than a muscular metropolis. It's lost moxie and a rough energy, while gaining grace and friendliness. I love both versions of the city, but I wish the prosperous Manhattan would become a little easier for young people to afford.

I didn't want readers to think I was asking to be praised for taking care of my wife while she was ill. Lots of people are heroic, more heroic than I was, when faced with the suffering of someone they love.

Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.