She would bring you some great book because she was a book matchmaker, because she loved books the way other girls loved clothes.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

I felt a constant, low-flying desperation, the kind you feel when you are trying, trying, trying to get something you will never, ever get.

Darkness does this. It finds all the places you are hiding in. It finds all the things you are holding onto tightly and makes you let go.

The romantic element is what the story Essential Maps for the Lost, sort of sits on, but all the stuff below the surface is really about family. It's about the baggage we bring, both the good and the hard stuff in that baggage. It's more about the other relationships. It's about mothers and fathers and sisters and dogs, all of the pieces. It's really more about - yes, love, in its widest usage.

If fate is a shape-shifter, then loves is too. It can be, anyway, in its most dangerous form. It´s your best day and then your worst. It´s your most hope and then you most despair. Lightness, darkness, it can swing between extremes at lightning speed- a boat upon the water on the most dangerous day, and then the clouds crawl in and the sky turns black and the sea rages and the boat is lost.

Fear was the biggest bullshitter, he’d said. But sometimes, too, fear told the truth.