She was with me. She did all of those things and so many more, things I would never tell anyone, and she never even loved me. Now that’s love.

Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.

Everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs.

I wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.

The way that I feel about my Jewish identity has been really radically changed by events in life. Like, becoming a writer is one. Having children is another. And getting older and watching, you know, my parents and grandparents get older has been another, the seasons of - being witness to the seasons of life and wanting to have some kind of infrastructure to deal with it, to cope with them. Ritual has become more important to me as I've gotten older. It's not always religious ritual, but it often borrows from Judaism.

If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.

If I’d been someone else in a different world I’d've done something different, but I was myself and the world was the world, so I was silent.