I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved.

He was in love, and people in that condition did stupid, unfathomable things. They were all flawed, every single one.

She was so busy forgetting, she couldn't take a single step into the future.

That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife.

Only her death could prove her innocence; a circle of impossible, deathly judgement.

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.