I don’t think anyone who falls in love has a choice. You’re just pulled to that person like true north, whether it’s good for you or bound to break your heart.

It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music & starting to stumble through it, only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying.

There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.

The question I hate the most is "How did you DO it - write novels and raise your children simultaneously!" I mean, do MALE authors get asked that??

Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

What if instead of focusing on what you don't have, you concentrate on what you've got?

We believe what we want to, what we need to. The corollary is that we choose not to see what we'd rather pretend doesn't exist.