(At the request of DoodleloverBilly)
The author of The Secret History, The Little Friend and The Goldfinch!

"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it." 

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"I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe." 

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"Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?"

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"Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming." 

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"Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you."

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"You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life." 

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"A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are." 

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"I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell." 

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"When you feel homesick,' he said, 'just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go." 

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"The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone."