Being wrong about important things is exhausting.

You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.

Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.

Grown-ups shouldn’t finish books they’re not enjoying. When you’re no longer a child, and you no longer live at home, you don’t have to finish everything on your plate. One reward of leaving school is that you don’t have to finish books you don’t like.

I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn't terribly painful.

Human beings are remarkable - at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?

Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.