If you get divorced in New York, you go into therapy and will talk to anybody you meet on the sidewalk about it.

The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

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

For years I did most of my reading on the F train between Brooklyn and Manhattan. I had long commutes, and I read tons of books on that train; I loved it.

If you get divorced in New York, you go into therapy and will talk to anybody you meet on the sidewalk about it.

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.

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