I'm deeply curious about Jewish things. I've toyed around with the idea of going to rabbinical school.

She said, "Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don't need?" I said, "It depends on what it means to need.

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

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.

He couldn't bear to live, but he couldn't bear to die. He couldn't bear the thought of he making love to someone else, but neither could he bear the absence of the thought. And as for the note, he couldn't bear to keep it, but he couldn't bear to destroy it either.

Our relationship to the environment matters, our relationship to animals matters, and our relationship to culture matters.

Everything else happened - why not the things that could have?