You probably have to trust that your work is following certain themes and certain movements, but then the rest is a kind of piecing together so that the whole becomes larger than the parts.

Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life--not so much with the woman, whom he didn't even know, but with the moment.

I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life.

His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.

And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?

There was a time when self-promotion was considered so verboten, especially for authors.