What’s that about? Love must be more about power than we think, if even in its most intimate moment of expression we think about not being the one who risks the most.

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.

Sometimes you can cattle rope your heart and sometimes you can't, is all.

Sometimes you think you've found love, when it's really just one of those objects that are shiny in a certain light--a trophy, say, or a ring, or a diamond, even. Glass shards, maybe. You've got to be careful, you do. The shine can blind you. The edges can cut you in way you never imagined. It is up to you to allow that or not.

she wonders if we feel more regret for the things we do or for the things we didn't do

I was a book lover from the beginning. I loved, love, words and images and ideas, the ways a book can make you feel things deeply or help you understand something you never even knew there were words for.

This is not to say I don’t feel my own grief, which can hit powerfully at unexpected times. It’s just that the telling does not automatically bring on my own upset, as people assume. I deal more with their reaction than they do with mine, and so you have to choose your timing.