Sometimes repugnance overrides psychological curiosity, and sometimes psychological curiosity is no more illuminating than pornography. - Cynthia Ozick

...this is very nice, cozy. You got a nice cozy place, Lublin." "Cramped," Rosa said. "I work from a different theory. For everything, there's a bad way of describing, also a good way. You pick the good way, you go along better." "I don't like to give myself lies," Rosa said. "Life is short, we all got to lie.

I always knew that this was what I wanted to do. I think this is true of most writers — especially anybody who's read Little Women, which is every writer. Not so much the male writers, let's admit it, but every writer who grows up has wanted to be Jo.

She thought: How hard it is to change one’s life. And again she thought: How terrifyingly simple to change the lives of others.