In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage.

Love doesn't grow at a steady rate, but advances in surges, bolts, wild leaps, and this was one of those.

Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.

This is the pain-pleasure of having newly adult children; they're innocent and ruthless in forgetting their sweet old dependence.

But how to do feelings? All very well to write "She felt sad", or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things.

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

What can it be about low temperatures that sharpens the edges of objects?