You know what ambrosia tastes like? It tastes like all the things you can't eat on Weight Watchers. Cheeseburgers, sugar cookies, regular freaking ice cream instead of, like, ice cream that's made out of air and human hope.

It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.

C'mon Pudge. I'm teasing. You have to be tough. I didn't know how bad it was-- and I'm sorry, and they'll regret it-- but you have to be tough.

Every time I try to set something in Chicago, I get intimidated by 'Augie March.' It's easy to set something in Indianapolis - we don't have 'Augie March' here. But I love writing about Chicago, and I love being there and imagining lives in Chicago. I hope to set something there in the future, but it's intimidating.

Nothing has ever looked like that ever in all of human history.

I was thinking about this girl you love so much," she said, "And this place I love so much. And how that happens. How you can just fall into it.

At some point, you gotta stop looking up at the sky, or one of these days you'll look back down and see that you floated away, too.