Diane Johnson

“Paris is a city of layers, of secrets, and it’s been my experience that the secrets of Paris are best discovered on foot.”

“In America, we have the feeling that we can change everything. We can change our houses, our spouses, our jobs. In France, it is more like, 'This is my life.'”

“To be an expatriate is to be in a perpetual state of becoming.”

“Trust your reader. Don't try to describe things. Give a hint and they will fulfill the rest themselves.”

“I think a writer's duty is to be a witness to his time in history.”

“The French have a penchant for absolutism, for thinking that things are all one way or all another, which is why they invented the guillotine and philosophical debating.”

“The great thing about marriage is that it gives you a person you can annoy for the rest of your life.”

“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.”

“Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass.”