So I was doing well academically, and I was a well-ranked tennis player and was the apple of my handsome father's eye-and then I would bring home a report card with a B-plus on it, and my parents would look at the report card as if I'd flunked. "Uh, honey?" one of them would ask, looking perplexed. "Now, this isn't a criticism but, if you could get a B-plus in philosophy, how much harder would it have been to get an A-minus?"

I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.

This business of having been issued a body is deeply confusing... Bodies are so messy and disappointing.

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.

Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.

The stuff I write about is pretty universal, the things my closest friends and I talk about - our anxiety about being here on this scary planet, during these scary times, as vulnerable as kittens, having lost so many people I couldn't live without.

Nothing can be delicious when you are holding your breath.