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" Novelists are too often assumed to write veiled autobiography. "

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" At the keyboard, unrelenting anguish about hurting other people's feelings inhibits spontaneity and constipates creativity. "

" Dieting is odious and can require years of determination and sacrifice. I entirely understand the impulse to say, 'Screw it,' and have another piece of cake. "

" Perhaps scientists will eventually discover that we are all clockwork bunnies, and our experience of volition is an electro-chemical illusion. "

" I read 'The Bell Jar' as an adolescent and, like most teenagers, had no problem identifying with a young woman who had everything going for her - looks, talent, opportunity, with her 'whole life ahead of her,' yadda, yadda, yadda - yet was spiraling into misery. "

" Tory supporters are not spontaneously ashamed; they have been made to feel ashamed. British leftists fiercely believe they are right - in the sense of correct but also in the sense of just. Conservatives likewise believe they are right-as-in-correct. Yet Tories are less confident about whether their politics are right-as-in-just. "

" Beauty is aspirational - an ideal that mortals approach but seldom attain. "

" Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether. "

" In the perfect world, no one would need pre-nups. But all too often, a misty-eyed romancer at the altar transforms into a vengeful, avaricious fiscal predator when the marriage goes south. "

" Few Amazon punters will explore a book with the depth of an 800-word review. "

" I'm sometimes asked if I get bored with talking about 'Kevin,' and of course, the short answer is yes. Nevertheless, after a long slog in the literary trenches, I never take a single reader for granted and always remind myself that for new readers the unfolding story is fresh. "

" Some of the best scenes in drama take almost no time - helping to illustrate that life-changing events in real life often occur in a split second, after which nothing is ever the same. "

" There was a point in the latter 1990s at which, suddenly, every sitcom and drama in sight had to have a gay or lesbian character or couple. That was good news as a voucher of the success of the gay rights movement, but it still grew a bit tiresome: 'Look at us! Our show is so hip, one of the characters is homosexual!' "

" What a good novelist does with a throwaway that serves no fictional purpose is throw it away. "

" 'The Feminine Mystique' goads me to gratitude that, thanks to forerunners like Betty Friedan, I've had the opportunity to pursue a career. "

" For the left-leaning, political identity is liable to be closely intertwined with personal identity. The left is collusive, if not presumptuous: should you get on well with leftists at a party, they will blithely assume that you share the same views on the invasion of Iraq, even if all you've talked about is the canapes. "

" I was born after the heavy spade work of female emancipation was done. "

" February is for curmudgeons, whinge-bags, and misanthropes. You can't begrudge us one month of the year or blame us for being even crabbier, it's so short. There is nothing good about it, which is why it's so great. "

" When Truman Capote wrote from the perspective of condemned murderers from a lower economic class than his own, he had some gall. But writing fiction takes gall. "

" Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the svelte. "

" Letting ourselves down in some fashion is such an integral part of daily life that the paucity of literature on the subject is baffling. "

" I have buckets of sympathy for the obese, often subject to cruelty, ridicule, denunciation, and contempt. "

" We speak often of 'destroying the planet' when what we mean is destroying its habitability for humans. "

" I think Britain is a little better at bringing intellectuals into discourse than America, where I'm from. Though I would say, perhaps, that the U.K. prefers its intellectualism to be entertaining. "

" The absence of doll babies in my toy chest didn't seriously influence my later decision not to become a mother; rather, I disdained Hasbro's Baby Alive wetting doll because I was already the kind of girl who would grow up to be childless by choice. "

" In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But what is happiness? "

" Reality doesn't have to be plausible. Reality can be as preposterous as it pleases. "

" Hypersensitivity has become a weapon. "

" Authors are free to ignore their editors' advice. I often avail myself of this veto power - sometimes out of a pigheadedness for which I'll pay the price. "

" In the big picture, few of our careers live up to the dreams we nursed when we were young. In fact, one underside of success is that it's nearly always penultimate, and so every accomplishment merely raises the bar. "

" During the protracted tooth-and-nail tussle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, I was one of those fierce partisans desperate for the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House to win the nomination. "