We stood and watched as God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could.

Love was like rain: it turned into ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn't go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said, Dear you, good-bye from me. Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you'd known your whole life. It settled and lurked; it stayed with you.

Good fortune can take forever to get to you, but as it turns out, sorrow is as quick as a shot.

I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.

There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

When I read Jerome D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" that was the first time I felt my mind blow open. I thought that book was speaking to me. I was 12 or 13 when I read that. I read everything on my mother's bookshelves.