Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

Bullies are just frightened people.

My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.

Each of his son's had been his favorite child.

I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.