You would be amazed by what you can give up, lose, or break, and yet still be a person who gets happy over brownies.

I love to both give and receive very old books.

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

I tend to really enjoy being swept up in fiction. I love a good story and I admire fiction authors.

You manufacture beauty with your mind

I realized I could really become hooked on these happy pills. They gave me a glorious feeling of general well-being and didn't make me fat, like alcohol. I wondered if there was any harm in being addicted to only these.

Dennis looked at the puppy in the window. We both did. It was the oddest thing. Normally, puppies in pet store windows sleep or pee or roll around on top of other dogs. This one ignored us its window-mates and was instead sitting with its nose pressed against the glass, looking at us with an extremely serious little expression on its face. An expression that seemed to me to be saying, "I am a sacred cow. Get out your wallet.