Oh, that river of wishes, the slippery crocodile dream of it, how it might have carried my body down through all the glittering sand bars to the sea.

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

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.

(on asparagus) Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac, and the church banned it from nunneries.

A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder.

Mother could go for one year without food, but not one day without her lip sticks.