The key to a successful relationship isn’t just in the words, it’s in the choice of punctuation. When you’re in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations.

I learn about the highs and lows of living with the same mother for your entire life, about how no one can make you angrier, but how you can't really love anyone more.

I guess it's a choice we make," she said. "What's a choice?" I asked. And she said, "How much of the world we let in.

It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show you tried unless you end up succeeding.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.

I don’t want to throw everything away for something uncertain.

Yes, time can be buoyed by wordlessness, but it needs to be anchored in words.