We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

Being a parent is absolutely exhausting and draining, along with all the joy and love.

Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.

Sometimes it takes failure to figure out who you aren't.

There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.

Most people's intuitions are drowned out by folk sayings. We have a moment of real feeling or insight, and then we come up with a folk saying that captures the insight in a kind of wash. The intuition may be real and ripe, fresh with possibilities, but the folk saying is guaranteed to be a cliche, stale and self-contained.