There are all sorts of losses people suffer - from the small to the large. You can lose your keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion.

Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive.

The thinnest slice would be teeming with memories of a love so strong it turned you inside out and left you gasping, and would be an identical match to a slice stored in the heart of a soul mate.

Could you really love someone who was capable of falling in love with somebody else?

I try really hard to ask people to take a look at their bookshelves. Are there female writers on it? Gay writers? Writers of color? There should be.

Polar north can't get away from a magnet; the magnet finds it, no matter what.