When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.

There are two reasons not to tell the truth--becuase lying will get you what you want, and because lying will keep someone from getting hurt.

If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase-not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been-what would you take?

I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However, I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship may be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one of these is better that the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together. Your love, I mean, and your life.

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

I wonder if the conversations you've never had with someone count, if you've been over them a thousand times in your mind.

Summertime, I think, is a collective unconscious. We all remember the notes that made up the song of the ice cream man; we all know what it feels like to brand our thighs on a playground slide that's heated up like a knife in a fire; we all have lain on our backs with our eyes closed and our hearts beating across the surface of our lids, hoping that this day will stretch just a little longer than the last one, when in fact it's all going in the other direction.