We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.

It's only before realities set in that we can treasure our delusions.

It often seems, looking back, that the unexpected comes to define us, the paths we didn't see coming and may have wandered down by mistake. The older we get the more willing we are to follow those, to surprise ourselves.

People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

If there is anyone who's living the work of the New Testament, it's the nuns of the Catholic church and not the Catholic hierarchy.

Grief remains one of the few things that has the power to silence us.

I don't have to listen to the Gospel on Sunday to know the stories of the New Testament. They inform so much of what I write that they're practically like a news scrim that goes through my brain 24/7.