Now when I have to remember a date, all I have to do is consult my rap sheet.

When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart.

you ask me what I'm looking for, and I outline you. you don't recognize the shape, offer other names. you say my time will come, and I hope.

I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.

It is its own form of conversation -- you can learn a lot about people from the stories they tell, but you can also know them from the way they sing along, whether they like the windows up or down, if they live by the map or by the world, if they feel the pull of the ocean.

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

elliptical, adj. The kiss I like the most is one of the slow ones. It’s as much breath as touch, as much no as yes. You lean in from the side, and I have to turn a little to make it happen.