Sometimes you build up these walls, you build and you build and you build up these walls and you think they’re so strong, but then someone can come along and tip them over with only his fingers, or the weight of his breath.

Sometimes you're sure dogs have some secret, superior intelligence, and other times you know they're only their simple, goofy selves.

I tended to give a book a chance and another chance and another, sometimes seeing it all the way to the end, still hoping for for it turn out different. Maybe I was confused about what you owed a book. What you owed people, for that matter, real or fictional.

Maybe we ought to look at a guy's response to our microwave from now on." Aunt Annie said. Really." Mom said. "The narcissist looks at his reflection in it. The OCD guy thinks you don't keep it clean enough.The antisocial--" Puts his fist through it because it reminds him of his father." Annie said. She'd read all of mom's books, too. And the paranoid one would be jealous of the amount of time you spend cooking." Mom said Were you using that microwave again? Is something going on between the two of you? I caught you looking right at its clock." Annie said.

Like all kids with divorced parents, I have an abundance of holidays.

Marriage is like a well-built porch. If one of the two posts leans too much, the porch collapses. So each must be strong enough to stand on its own.

It was more work than it seemed, looking through a telescope, as the Earth was continually moving and you had to move along with it. You don't realize how fast this acutally happens, and it's kind of both creepy and wonderful when you stop to think about it. And it makes you realize there's absolutely no way to avoid change. You can sit there and cross your arms and refuse it, but underneath you, things are still spinning away.