There are certain things that I'll hear about and that I think will make a great book and I put it in a file. Sometimes it's a situation that interests me, and I don't even realize what I'm trying to say about it until I get closer to it. Sometimes the book after that I've written 125 pages of, and I can tell you what the book is after that. I just sort of have a linear progression, but more than anything, the topics land in your lap. I don't feel that I go out searching for them.

If you live in each other's pockets long enough, you're related.

There are so many ways to betray someone. You can whisper behind his back. You can deceive him on purpose. You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you. You can break a promise. The question is, if you do any of those things, are you also betraying yourself?

Sometimes I think my whole life has been about holding on to you.

I pointed to the wound. "It's missing," I said. My grandmother smiled, and that was all it took for me to stop seeing the scar, and to recognize her again. "Yes," she said. "But see how much of me is left?

I don't know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You'd be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.

Marina sighs. "Love's a tidal wave," she says. "Because it sweeps you off your feet?" I ask. "No. Because it sucks you under and you drown.