Every couple has two stories - the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version best left alone.

I do not expect to get what I want, so I don't. And I don't even try.

That's how life is. Sometimes there are happy endings, sometimes there aren't, and more often there are shades of gray.

I think that we have to consciously be aware that every moment we're in, every different stage in our lives, we can control.

A theme in a lot of my books - and in my own life - is making choices that you feel you should make, or what society wants you to make, as opposed to what is truly right for you.

There are people and places and events you'd prefer to forget or at least gloss over. In the end, you can slap a pretty label on it - like serendipity or fate. Or you can believe that it's just the random way life unfolds.

Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall—the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.