The short story that eventually grew into Constellation was the first fiction set in Russia that I'd ever written, and that was right around the time I was giving up on a doomed, never-to-be-seen first novel. While I saw it could be something bigger, in hindsight fortuitous timing was as responsible as anything.

Perhaps our deepest love is already inscribed within us, so its object doesn't create a new word but instead allows us to read the one written.

Life: a constellation of vital phenomena—organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.

For their entire lives, even before they met you, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree.

It's stupid. There are maps to show you how to get to the place where you want to be but no maps that show you how to get to the time when you want to be.

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

You are mine. I recognize you. We twist our souls around each other's miseries. It is that which makes us family.