Our moment had passed somehow. I was different. He was, too. Without our “madness” to unite us, there wasn’t anything much there. Or maybe too much had happened in too short a time. It’s like when you take a trip with someone you don’t know very well. Sometimes you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realise all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travellers, if that makes any sense.

The truth is, sometimes too much can happen in a relationship, and then there's nothing anyone can do or say. It's broken.

Before I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.

It's a weakness to apologize before hearing what the other person's grievances are. You don't want to end up creating new grievances where there were none to begin with. Another Daddy-ism, if you hadn't already guessed.

Covers matter. In my experience, a different cover can make you think you're reading an entirely different book.

"I accept your condemnation," I said.

Saying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know.