There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

The tunnels of our lives connect, coming to daylight at the oddest moments, and then plunge us into the dark again. We return to the lives of those who have gone before us, a perplexing möbius strip until we come home, eventually, to ourselves.

Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.

The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction.

That was the sort of everyday love I had to learn to contend with: if you grow up with it, it's hard to think you'll ever match it. I used to think it was difficult for children of folks who really loved each other, hard to get out from under that skin because sometimes it's just so comfortable you don't want to have to develop your own.

I think a good novel can be a doorstop to despair. I also think the real bravery comes with those who prepared to go through that door and look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small.