I came into adult life equipped with an essentially romantic ethic.

The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.

It's hard to find a book that's safe to write. Because one always goes to dark or difficult places.

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

Mourning has its place but also its limits.

What does it cost to lose those weeks, that light, the very nights in the year preferred over all others? Can you evade the dying of the brightness? Or do you evade only its warning? Where are you left if you miss the message the blue nights bring?

we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.