You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.

I met Jay Jonhson. I won him the way poor people occasionally win the lottery: Shameless perseverance and embarrassingly dumb luck, and every time I see one of those sly, toothless, beaten-down souls on TV holding a winning ticket, I think, Go, team.

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar.

My writing process, such as it is, consists of a lot of noodling, procrastinating, dawdling, and avoiding.

I have made the best and happiest ending that I can in this world, made it out of the flax and netting and leftover trim of someone else's life, I know, but made it to keep the innocent safe and the guilty punished, and I have made it as the world should be and not as I have found it.

In a true partnership, the kind worth striving for, the kind worth insisting on, and even, frankly, worth divorcing over, both people try to give as much or even a little more than they get. 'Deserves' is not the point. And 'owes' is certainly not the point. The point is to make the other person as happy as we can, because their happiness adds to ours. The point is -- in the right hands, everything that you give, you get.

Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.