When my mother died, my father's early widowhood gave him social cachet he would not have had if they had divorced. He was a bigger catch for the sorrow attached.

We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.

He could not wait to get rid of them so he could enjoy remembering them.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

I could claim any number of high-flown reasons for writing, just as you can explain certain dogs behavior... But maybe, it’s that they’re dog, and that’s what dogs do.