Literature, of course, is not a contest.

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'

To me, writing is much freer than dancing. With writing, you could do it whenever you wanted. You didn't have to do little exercises and stay in shape. You could have great moments of inspiration that advanced the story. In dance, unless you're going to choreograph things yourself, you're at the service of someone else.

That I might never have an occasion to wear such a thing or that I might look like the worst sort of Republican doing so probably never occurred to her.

At work you will be lachrymose and distracted. You will shuffle through the hall like a legume with feet. People will notice.

Then, when it didn’t crash, when you succeeded in keeping it aloft with your own worthlessness, all you had to do was stagger off, locate your luggage, and, by the time a cab arrived, come up with a persuasive reason to go on living.

Those are the love killers. They love you and then they kill you. They’re from another planet. Supposedly.

Tell him not to smoke in your apartment. Tell him to get out. At first he protests. But slowly, slowly, he leaves, pulling up the collar on his expensive beige raincoat, like an old and haggard Robert Culp. Slam the door like Bette Davis. Love drains from you, takes with it much of your blood sugar and water weight. You are like a house slowly losing its electricity, the fans slowing, the lights dimming and flickering; the clocks stop and go and stop.

She knew there were only small joys in life – the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through – and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.

I did think reviewers were supposed to be polite about story collections – collections are rather delicate creatures in the literary environment – but not everybody got this memo, I guess.