I've never been in love, but I've always imagined it--weirdly--like some sort of OxiClean commercial. The TV host shows a scene from an ordinary day, and then takes a big old sponge soaked in love and swipes away the stains. Suddenly that same scene is missing all the mistakes, all the loneliness. The colors are like jewels, ten times richer than they were before. The music is louder and clearer. "Love," the host will say, "makes life a little brighter.

Maybe if you spend your life pretending you're on a movie set, you don't ever have to admit that the walls are made out of paper and the food is plastic and the words in your mouth aren't really yours.

In my family, we seem to have a tortured history of not saying what we ought to and not meaning what we do.

It is always hardest for me to write a book that has kids in it close to my kids' ages. It is always hardest for me to write a book that has kids in it close to my kids' ages.

The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story

There were some people who hit your life so hard, they left a stain on your future.

I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.