The worst of it is over now, and I can't say that I am glad. Lose that sense of loss—you have gone and lost something else. But the body moves toward health. The mind, too, in steps. One step at a time. Ask a mother who has just lost a child, How many children do you have? "Four," she will say, "—three," and years later, "Three," she will say, "—four.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

I'm not good at small talk; I'm not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn't come up.

consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.

The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.

Maybe this is not a come-down-from-the-ledge story. But I tell it with the thought that the woman on the ledge will ask herself a question, the question that occurred to that man in Bogota. He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good?

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.