Sometimes it bursts from your imagination fully formed, sometimes you absorb from nonfiction, sometimes you're able to imprint your own autobiographical experiences on a world you never yourself were a part of. A decent number of the one-liners in the title story originally came up in conversations with my girlfriend or my neighbor.

Happiness came in moments of unpredictable loveliness.

We twist our souls around each other’s miseries.

From personal experience, I completely agree that it is often easier to go for monotone sadness. When I was starting out, I wrote a gazillion short stories that ran the gamut of human suffering - drug addiction, child abuse, terminal illness, loved ones dying by all manner of misfortune, etc. In hindsight, it's clear that I mistook the power of the situation for the power of the story.

How often is immense sadness mistaken for courage?

She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency.

She was fluent in four languages and yet her fists against the rusted hood were the fullest articulation of her defeat.