Violence up close has a smell. Like copper blood and charcoal burning.

You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.

Talking out loud to fictional characters is just the tip of the iceberg.

When this is over...we will got to the rainforest, or a beach as white as bone. We will eat grapes from the vine, we will swim with sea turtles, we will walk miles on cobblestone streets. We will laugh and talk and confess. We will.

I learned a long time ago with you that folks who were trying to be kind would rather do it with a macaroni-and-cheese bake than any personal involvement. You hand off a serving dish and you've done your job - no need to get personally involved, and your conscience is clean. Food is the currency of aid.

I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got through it.

The Inuit say that the stars are holes in heaven. And every time we see the people we loved shining through, we know they're happy.