It was called the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages. If not for the monks, everything the world had ever learned would have been lost. Well, we live in a similar time, when we're losing the vast majority of what we do and see and learn. But it doesn't have to be that way.

The voice of the nickly reflection of the moon was not as deep as you might expect. It was a singer’s voice, though, a tenor, one that loved itself without reservation. “I feel time like you dream. Your dreams are jumbled. You can’t remember the order of your dreams, and when you recall them, the memories bend. Faces change. It’s all in puddles and ripples. That’s what time is for me.

At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.

It is no way to live, to wait to love.

I've never had WiFi at home. I'm too easily distracted, and YouTube is too tempting.

Some of these kids just don't plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them, one human interaction at a time.

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.