We're all simultaneously separated and connected by our devices, staring into our little screens, and also hungry for experience and community.

I think so much about how we read, about the nature of solitude, and of community, is changing in ways that none of us yet understand.

Devotion, as it relates to the title of my memoir, means fidelity - as in fidelity to a person or a practice. I think it's certainly possible to feel devotion without having faith, at least in the religious sense of the word.

There's something about urban life - you walk out your door, and you're in a steady of stream of life happening around you, and it's very easy to get caught up in that stream and simply kind of keep on moving.

I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people interrupt themselves in the middle of some story they're telling me to say, "You know you can't write about this."

We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache. In fact, to love - fully, madly, deeply - is the ensure heartache some day.

Our pain is a part of who we authentically are.