I never had much interest in being a child. As a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage.

It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. "Everything went white," those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

There must be times when everybody writes when they feel they're evading writing.

[O]ne of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.

Becoming a parent is actually terrifying. A lot of people have that feeling about their dogs. And if you're the kind of person who's going to have that feeling about a dog you're definitely going to have that about a child.

For however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable I.