I remember liking to write stories pretty early on. In fourth or fifth grade, they would give us the beginning of a story, and we were supposed to finish it. I remember liking that. But I didn't think about deciding to become a writer until high school at about the age of 16.

There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

Grief is natural,' she said. 'Overcoming it is a matter of choice.

The essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you begin.

it's amazing what you can get used to.

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.