My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood.

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.

We listened to them, but it was clear they'd received too much therapy to know the truth.

It was something every child knew how to do, maintain a direct and full connection with the world. Somehow you forgot about it as you grew up, and had to learn it again.

But maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar.

During a warm winter rain ... the basins of her collarbones collected water.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.