When you leave a place, it's best to leave.

That's what I realized: if I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created.

Chicago is the Great American City, and it was really great to live there during a time of economic expansion and opportunity and growth. I felt like I was living at the center of the world. Unlike New York, no one expects you to be a professional writer.

She did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, "Teenagers think the hate invincible," with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.

I don't think ministering requires a religious context. The number one thing is that every parent is extremely worried about their kid. Of course, when a chaplain shows up, that can exacerbate this worry rather than calm it.

I have never really thought of him as a person, either.... A guy whose strings were broken, who didn’t feel the root of his leaves of grass connected to the field, a guy who was cracked. Like me.

Random questions are the least random of all questions.