My mother walks forward. She's crying, but there's a smile on her face. For God's sake, is it any wonder I can't ever understand what you people are feeling?

I have never fit into this town, this marriage, this skin. I am the child who was picked last to play tag; I am the girl who laughed although she did not get the joke; I am the piecemeal part of you that you pretend doesn't exist, except it is all I am, all the time.

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

As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?

The bottom line is that we never fall for the people we're supposed to.

How do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?

I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.