You can't beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

A Life in Men is a joyful, ambitious novel that is also an adventure traversing three continents, as well as a meditation on love, sex, and, most important, friendship, which can overcome time, distance, and even death.

Men didn't understand that you couldn't let yourself be consumed with passion when there were so many people needing your attention, when there was so much work to do. Men didn't understand that there was nothing big enough to exempt you from your obligations, which began as soon as the sun rose over the paper company and ended only after you'd finished the day's chores and fell exhausted into sleep against the background noise of I-94.

I figure that I'm always going to be fine, one way or another, but I do worry about other people who have difficulty moving from one world to the next. It's the folks who are truly invested in their lives who have the hardest time with change.

I was unhappy and I couldn't figure out what was the matter. And he told me to go take a writing course. And I didn't even know that one could learn to write in writing courses.

Being five-foot-ten at fourteen years old was a little bit scary.

I like living near my family, and near the people I understand the best. The landscape of Michigan speaks to me, and the humility and humor of the people here makes sense. It just feels right to live here, in a place where I don't dare put on airs.