I had long ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It’s the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.

As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.

There is a level of grief so deep that it stops resembling grief at all. The pain becomes so severe that the body can no longer feel it. The grief cauterizes itself, scars over, prevents inflated feeling. Such numbness is a kind of mercy.

The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship.

I think a lot of people who feel as though they desperately want to be married oftentimes simply desperately want to have a wedding.

God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.

The little fishing boat anchors right off the shore of Gili Meno. There are no docks here on this island. You have to roll up your pants, jump off the boat and wade in through the surf on your own power. There's absolutely no way to do this without getting soaking wet or even banged up on the coral, but it's worth all the trouble because the beach here is so beautiful, so special