When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires.

Ask a kid who's struggling in math if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he feels like a moron. Ask the math genius if he likes being in a mixed-level class, and he'll tell you he's sick of doing all the work during group projects. Sometimes, it's better to sort like with like.

I think my writing has become "cleaner."

Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was... ...Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up. I sat between my mother and my father, watching strangers on TV carry in Shaker rockers and dusty paintings and ancient beer tankards and cranberry glass dishes; people and their hidden treasures, who had to be told by experts that they'd taken something incredibly precious for granted.

At home I was raped by a guy i thought I loved' Trixie said, because thats what it was to her and always would be.

Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your life was just going to be a series of days that were all the same, that were do-overs?

And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.