I stir in bed and the memories rise out of me like a buzz of flies from a carcass. I crave to be rid of them.

For Lou Ann, life itself was a life-threatening enterprise.

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

Most of the girls my age, or even younger, have babies. They appear way too young to be married, till you look in their eyes. Then you'll see it. Their eyes look happy and sad at the same time, but unexcited by anything, shifting easily off to the side as if they've already seen most of what there is. Married eyes.

No matter what kind of night you're having, morning always wins.

the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners

For if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest.