I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off. It felt like crying. We could not look at each other. It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn't thinking of me. He squeezed my sides so hard, and pushed so hard. Like he was trying to push me through to somewhere else. Why does anyone ever make love?

I'm less worried about accomplishment - as younger people always can't help but be - and more concerned with spending my time well, spending time with my family, and reading, learning things.

In America right now, we use words like 'smart' to talk about bombs. American rhetoric is grounded in ideas of capital-G Good, capital-E Evil, and it's very clear who is on which side. But in a book you can do just the opposite. You can use all lower-case words.

It would be refreshing to have a politician try to defend guns without any reference to the Second Amendment, but on the merits of guns.

It will never be the case that people won't eat meat. I think it could conceivably be the case one day that people eat very small amounts of it. That it's a special thing, rather than reach for it because it's cheap or reach for it because it's convenient, that it becomes something festive or something celebratory, once a week, and that could actually be achieved on small farms if we really changed our habits.

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone.

She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release.