Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty.

The flaw is the thing we love.

I'd confused need with love and love with sacrifice.

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.

Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.