a letter ... changes utterly the moment it slips inside an envelope. It stops being mine. It becomes yours. What I mean is gone. What you understand is all that remains.

Love letters lack taste. No restraint: falling off cliffs, going up in flames.

The honeysuckle was everywhere the day the letter arrived, like heat. Wild roses bloomed in hedges of tendrils and perfume. There were fat bees, dirigible bees, plump and miniature. It was a sweet, tangled morning, and the sun rose, leisurely, in a spectacular blush.

Elinor Lipman tweets like a nightingale with an eagle eye.

I love my bed. It is larger than a desk and better designed to hold books and papers. It is softer than a desk and better designed for naps. It is the center of all good things. And day or night, everyone knows where to find me.

... there had been the two little boys. Now they were gone, too. They loved her and called her and sent her e-mails and would still snuggle up to her to be petted when they were in the mood, but they were men, and though they would always be at the center of her life, she was no longer at the center of theirs.

Life is full of surprises. Why is that always surprising?