I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.

You have to do something bad to do something good.

I'm not funny. People assume that because my books are funny, I'll be funny in real life. It's the inevitable disappointment of meeting me.

Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don't cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears - you know, it's a horrible thing.

It is my great hope that our paths, however long and winding, will cross again.

But what she was really trying to say was this: I like music better than anything in the world, after you.

Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree.