Even though I don't write about things that come from my life because I'm lucky, and I live in a great place with great kids and, you know, a great husband, I think you can find threads of me in the characters, so that's really what being a writer is, probably.

and another claimed it was inherited through a parent who was a carrier of the defective gene. I had always assumed the latter was the case with Claire. After all, surely a child who grew out of grief would be born with a heavy heart.

I think her flaws make me love her even more. She's not perfect, but she's perfect to me

My friends say I have two speeds: fast and blistering.

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?

Is it because they are so comfortable, they already know what the other is thinking? Or is it because after a certain point, there is simply nothing left to say?

You can blame your ugliness for keeping people at bay, when in reality you're crippled by the thought of letting another person close enough to popentially scar you even more deeply. You can tell yourself that it's safer to love someone who will never really love you back, because you can't lose someone you never had.