Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.

I don't believe in fate, as in, which I - as a Catholic, I think, sort of predestination. But I certainly believe in chance.

I am the person who is appropriating stories that are not mine and turning them into a book.

It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.

The love between humans is the thing that nails us to the earth.

For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.

I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.