There are millions of people in the world, and the spirits will see that most of them you never have to meet. But there are one or two you are tied to, and the spirits will cross you back and forth, threading so many knots until they catch and you finally get it right.

When I think about writers who use fiction as social commentary and to raise social awareness but who are also very popular, I think of Dickens.

That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

Turn around, and the people you thought you knew might change. Your little boy might now live half a world away. Your beautiful daughter might be sneaking out at night. Your ex-husband might by dying by degrees. This is the reason that dancers learn, early on, how to spot while doing pirouettes: we all want to be able to find the place where we started.

I would figure out, later, how to explain to my boss that, for me, Delia will never be a story, but a happy ending.

I wonder if, as you get older, you stop missing people so fiercely. Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you've got, instead of what you don't.

You might have to lose control before you could find out what you'd been missing.