Home, bed, sleep, mother--who knew more beautiful words than these?

You should not have assault rifles in your home.

Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.

I love a large cast of characters. That's the way life is: it's flooded with people and we keep them all straight.

There was no time for kissing but she wanted him to know that in the future there would be. A kiss in so much loneliness was like a hand pulling you up out of the water, scooping you up from a place of drowning and into the reckless abundance of air. A kiss, another kiss.

When I wrote nonfiction, my best work was the really personal stuff.

Happiness compresses time, makes it dense and bright, pocketsized.