I don't have any romantic views of parenting. Every step of the way it's really hard. It's a dangerous world, physically and psychologically.

I naturally prefer the company of people who hold grudges, as long as they are not held against me.

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.

Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water - just as writing is also about dealing with the emptiness.

Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant profit. So half of them go bad, anyway.

Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?