It had never occurred to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected.

One small cloud, cast out by the herd, limps away to the west.

That's what sons do: write to their mothers about recall, tell themselves about the past until they come to realize that they are the past.

We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what really was, what it meant.

I grew up sort of middle class, safe and suburban.

I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.

They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.