I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable nighttime conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no light in the room.

It's the way you say thank you like you're genuinely thankful. I have never met anyone else who does that on a regular basis.

I can see that the sadness has returned. And it's not a beautiful sadness- beautiful sadness is a myth. Sadness turns our features to clay, not porcelain.

If we actually thought about every decision we made, we'd be paralyzed ... You have to decide which decisions you're actually going to make, and then you have to let the rest of them go.

The secret to living long is to have something to live for.

Breathing, n You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine. Sometimes I worry that this is happening to me in reverse. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to breathe.

His books are kept on freestanding shelves hung at different angles on a sea-green wall. They defy gravity, as good books should.