You’ll see, there are a million ways to kill off the soft parts of yourself.

I think unknowing is the most important theological idea for me. Unlearning the things you think you know.

As a child I made a pact with my mother. I agreed that we were doomed, that she and I abided together in a cocoon of melancholy.

The problem with being a modern woman, I thought, as the front door swung wide, is that you have to pretend to be stronger than you are.

I knew you could find a certain relief in begging God, it had helped me, but on the other hand, God never answered directly and that was always depressing.

Everything was new, now I’m a junkie, I seem to need more severe doses of experience to feel anything.

A good biography is the richest experience. When you watch a TV series together with someone is like being in a novel with them.