She takes another long haul, lets the smoke settle in her lungs-- she has heard somewhere that cigarettes are good for grief. One long drag and you forget how to cry. The body too busy dealing with the poison.

Yet she likes complications. She wishes she could turn and say: I like people who unbalance me.

People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time- but even on the best day nobody's perfect.

...it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise.

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

I don't know of a greater privilege than being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the only thing we have that can trump life itself.

Cynicism is easy. An optimist is a braver cynic.