I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion. I've found it takes at least two and generally three things to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are, feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at the bottom of the heap.

It is a rule of nature that taking a day off on the farm sets a person back at least a week.

We all need people to tell us that we were the ones who had been deeply wronged.

She read books quickly and compulsively, paperback after paperback, as if she might drift away without the anchor of the printed page.

It was impossible not to admire him, not to want to do something to contain that kind of beauty- drink him, ingest him, sneak into his shirt and hide for the rest of one's natural life.

I feel like I don't have all the ingredients a person is supposed to have.

My god has always been a laissez-faire deity, giving you the initial goods and sending you on to make your way.