You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.

This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.

When you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that's always in progress.

Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.