I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

The perishable nature of love is what gives love its profound importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does.

Pregnancy humbles husbands. After an initial rush of male pride they quickly recognise the minor role that nature had assigned them in the drama of reproduction.

The Statue of Liberty's gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars.

She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else.

What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like?