He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

Life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed.

Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.

The reality is that most of North America knows next to nothing of the 20th centurys first genocide - the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the First World War.

And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.

I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.

Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.