The earth has a mouth?” Buckley asked. A big round mouth but with no lips,” my father said. Jack,” my mother said, laughing, “stop it. Do you know I caught him outside growling at the snapdragons?

Please don't let Daddy die Susie," he whispered. "I need him.

It's very weird to succeed at thirty-nine years old and realize that in the midst of your failure, you were slowly building the life that you wanted anyway.

Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.

There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.

Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone.

It was Buckley, as my father and sister joined the group and listened to Grandma Lynn’s countless toasts, who saw me. He saw me standing under the rustic colonial clock and stared. He was drinking champagne. There were strings coming out from all around me, reaching out, waving in the air. Someone passed him a brownie. He held it in his hand but did not eat. He saw my shape and face, which had not changed-the hair still parted down the middle, the chest still flat and hips undeveloped-and wanted to call out my name. It was only a moment, and then I was gone.