I want an ending that’s satisfying. I’m more of a classical writer than a modernist one in that I want the ending to be coherent and feel like an ending. I don’t like when it just seems to putter out. I mean, life is chaotic enough.

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

Is there anything as incredible as the love story of your own parents? Anything as hard to grasp as the fact that those two over-the-hill players, permanently on the disabled list, were once in the starting lineup? It's impossible to imagine my father, who in my experience was aroused mainly by the lowering of interest rates, suffering the acute, adolescent passions of the flesh.

She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself.

Their desire was silent yet magnificent, like a thousand daisies attuning their faces toward the path of the sun.

She was a large, disordered woman, like a child's drawing that didn't stay within the lines.

Whenever we got a glimpse, their faces looked indecently revealed, as though we were used to seeing women in veils.