Nick is like a good stiff drink: He gives everything the correct perspective.

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.

She released her grievances like handfuls of birdseed: They are there, and they are gone.

Safer to be feared than loved.

Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it.

To me, marriage is the ultimate mystery.

I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.