“I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd ...”

“So many problems, however infinitely varied they first appear, turn out to be matters of money. I can't tell you how much this offends me. The value of money is a scam perpetrated by those who have...”

“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.”

“Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.”

“who knows you better than your own brother?”

“Im seeing so much of America today, Luya kept telling Lowell in nervously accented English. It became a personal catchphrase for him whenever things were not to his liking, hed say that Im seeing...”

“One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”

“Everybody has a home team: Its the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. Its the people who, near or far, know everything thats wrong with you and love you an...”

“The more you condemn yourself for thinking or feeling a certain way, the more you feel stuck within your own body and mind.. What if you went the other way and embraced it so totally that it was as...”

“Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.”

“...reason rationalizes reality for him (Dr. Nathan) as it does for the rest of us, in the Freudian sense of providing a more palatable or convenient explanation, and there are so many subjects abou...”

“Writing my own novels in the '90s...I never imagined that in ten years, science and rationality would require explanation and defense in a world rocked and ruled by religious fervor. ”

“I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet ...”

“The relationship between truth and reason:"Truth cannot be reached by reason alone!”

“I writeNotFor the sake of gloryNot For the sake of fameNotFor the sake of successBut for the sake of my soul”