The light was cut to lace by the trees that had grown so thick with leaves in the last few months.

People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappointment them, or, if they do, the owners manages to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.

Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself.

Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.

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

My novels are very much the same, as I think many people's novels are.

That is one thing I've learned, that it is possible to really understand things at certain points, and not be able to retain them, to be in utter confusion just a short while later. I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try to call on it, just like a lightbulb cracking off when you throw the switch.