And I’m not going to get any thinner or any younger, my ass is going to hit the ground, if it hasn’t already–and I want to be with somebody who can still see me in...

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

And in the past, Archie wondered, was it just that fewer people cheated? Were they more honest, and did they leave their front doors open, did they leave their kids with the neighbors, pay social...

You never know, until it happens, what you will owe the dead.

This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.

One just has to look at the thing from a perspective that interests you personally.

More silence; children’s silence, so desperately desired by adults yet eerie when it finally occurs.

He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelled of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people’s jobs; or had no job and bummed off the...

Cos if it’s encyclopedias we’ve got enough, like, information… and if it’s God, you’ve got the wrong house.

Full stories are as rare as honesty.

Then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,it seems like some long, dirty lie … and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is...

Now, how do the young prepare to meet the old? The same way the old prepare to meet the young: with a little condescension; with low expectation of the other’s rationality; with the knowledge that...

Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

It’s like that quote: ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.’ The choice between a duty or a...

When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths...

Sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.

When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose...

The mantra of the makeover junkie, sucking it in, letting it out; unwilling to settle for genetic fate; waiting instead for her transformation…

There was an inevitability about the road towards each other which encouraged meandering along the route.

It became clear that Keisha Blake could not start something without finishing it. If she climbed onto the boundary wall of Caldwell, she was compelled to walk the entire wall, no matter the obstructions in...

It starts innocently. Casually. You turn up at the annual spring fair full of beans, help with the raffle tickets (because the pretty red-haired music teacher asks you to) and win a bottle of whiskey...

USURY: Everybody’s looking for the job in which you never have to pay anyone their pound of flesh. Self-employed nirvana. A lot of artists like to think of themselves as uncompromising; a lot of management...

My mind does not easily accept stately historical processions.

This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a...

This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust.

A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

The planet is finished with us, at this point –

Q: Where and when do you do your writing? A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules… afternoons are best, but I’m too lethargic for...

I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts–and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at...

There were good and bad kinds of weakness in men, and she had come to the conclusion that the key was to know which kind you were dealing with.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

That kind of inability to improve is really very rare. That kind of consistency is miraculous, in a way.

The future’s another country, man… And I still ain’t got a passport.

You look fine. – Right. I look fine. Except I don’t, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man’s nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect...

We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a...

[..] as midnight inevitably came and went without the horsemen of the apocalypse making an appearance, Clara surprised herself by falling into a melancholy.For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling sea-water to retrieve the...

As long as we encourage a culture of victim hood, said Monty, with the rhythmic smoothness of self-quotation, we will continue to raise victims. And so the cycle of underachievement continues.

American houses…’ she said, peering over her right shoulder and down the street. ‘They always seem to believe that nobody ever loses anything, has lost anything. I find that very sad. Do you know what...

Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him.

But I cannot be worrying-worrying all the time about the truth. I have to worry about the truth that can be lived with. And that is the difference between losing your marbles drinking the salty...

You don’t have favourites among your children, but you do have allies.

When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

They were married before they were friends, which is another way of saying:Their marriage was the occasion of their friendship.They were married before they noticed many small differences in background, aspiration, education, ambition. (…)Noting such...

Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra—they’ll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even....

Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of one’s own resources.

Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful...

Right. I look fine. Except I don’t,’ said Zora, tugging sadly at her man’s nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust. To...

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.