I was beginning to understand.My grandmother's love was cold because she was afraid of things;that was why everything had to be perfect.

Never look at other people's bad fortune,' my mother said. 'If you do, it will come back to find you instead of its rightful owner.

I can't really work on more than one thing at a time

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.

You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go-into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you're not really there.

Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.

I wasn't good company, that was true, and people avoided me, but that was all right. I was too busy dreaming.