“I wanted to get the tears out of the way so I could act sensibly.”

“What these men represented was not 'The West' but what was for this century a relatively new kind of monied class in America, a group devoid of social responsibilities because their ties to any one place had been so attenuated.”

“Certain places seem to exist mainly because someone has written about them.”

“Carter and Helene still ask questions. I used to ask questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is “nothing.”

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be…”

“New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.”

“Of course great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service.”

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.”

“I went on a book tour immediately after 9/11. I was due to leave the following Wednesday, so I just did. It was an amazing thing, because planes hadn't been flying very many days, and I got on this plane and went to San Francisco, and the minute that plane lifted above the clouds, I felt this incredible sense of lightness.”

“I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.”

“Strength is one of those things you're supposed to have. You don't feel that you have it at the time you're going through it.”