I always write out of a need to read something, rather than a need to write something.

Things were happening around us, but nothing was happening between us.

She was so beautiful, like someone who you will never meet, but always dream of meeting, like someone who is too good for you.

I wasn’t having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts.

Just about every children's book in my local bookstore has an animal for its hero. But then, only a few feet away in the cookbook section, just about every cookbook includes recipes for cooking animals. Is there a more illuminating illustration of our paradoxical relationship with the nonhuman world?

Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.

There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to.