“The single most important thing anyone needs to know about me," Kate hepburn said, "is that I am totally, completely the product of two damn fascinating individuals who happened to be my parents. I've had a pretty remarkable life, but compared to my mother and father, I'm dull.”

“Anyone who tells you her life is like a book has either been reading some bad books or is not being straight with you or herself about her life.”

“One of my challenges [as a writer] is to make sure that I'm giving the reader details that the character cares about rather than details that I care about. I#d say that's key to world-building.”

“Stuck in my own trap of writing about a nonsubject, I think I can defend my own self-respect, and also the integrity of a lost girl, by saying two things. First, the trivial doings of Paris Hilton are of no importance to me, or anyone else, and I should not be forced to contemplate them. Second, she should be left alone to lead such a life as has been left to her. If this seems paradoxical, then very well.”

“I'm very happy by myself--I'm lucky in that way--if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it.”

“It is a terrible thing to feel sorry for one’s mother or indeed father. And it’s an additionally awful thing to feel this and to know the impotence of the adolescent to do anything at all about it. Worse still, perhaps, is the selfish consolation that it isn’t really one’s job to rear one’s parents.”

“Everything everyone thinks they know about [Mother Teresa] is false. It must be the single most successful emotional con job of the twentieth century.”