You write fiction, you're writing memoir, and when you're writing memoir, you're writing fiction.

It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us.

No experience in this world has ever been cathartic without the willing participation of the individual. Life does not automatically bestow wisdom or growth upon anyone just for showing up.

A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where shall they live?

Your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.

My face is a transparent transmitter of my every thought.

When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?