She really does like him, she likes lying next to him, she wants to be around him; when you get down to it, can you say that about many people?

... nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.

To be a person who sees a political ad on television and takes the statements in it as fact, how can you exist in this world? How is it you're not robbed daily by charlatans who knock at your door?

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

Later on, when I tried to imagine how I might have ruined things, that would occur to me - that I'd so rarely resisted, that I hadn't made it hard enough for him. Maybe it was like gathering your strength and hurling your body against a door you believe to be locked, and then the door opens easily - it wasn't locked at all - and you're standing looking into the room, trying to remember what it was you thought you wanted.

And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts.

There are a lot of things in the world that are a lot weirder than psychic abilities, that we accept as true.