It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.

In case you haven't noticed, people get hard-hearted against the people they hurt. Because they can't stand it. Literally. To think we did that to someone. I did that. So we think of all the reasons why it's okay we did whatever we did.

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.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.