I have my own story, and I love my story, but I know I can't tell it alone, not now. Because stories have centers, but they don't have edges. No boundaries.

Because a real kiss, a kiss that two real people choose to give each other - it's something that can't be filmed or photographed or drawn, or even described with words. Because a kiss isn't what it looks like or how it feels. A real kiss happens down deep inside of two hearts at the same time. It's hidden away. A real kiss is invisible.

Dave couldn't remember the last time a grownup had apologized to him.

I glance into the faces of all these people out for a Sunday stroll, but I'm not seeing eyes and noses and mouths. I'm seeing stories. Every person has a story. All the hopes and dreams. And fears. And secrets. In every face.

But fear doesn't need doors and windows. It works from the inside.

It is not good to have TOO MUCH of anything.

And I love Jane Austen's use of language too--the way she takes her time to develop a phrase and gives it room to grow, so that these clever, complex statements form slowly and then bloom in my mind. Beethoven does the same thing with his cadence and phrasing and structure. It's a fact: Jane Austen is musical. And so's Yeats. And Wordsworth. All the great writers are musical.