and i wouldn't say no to something sweet.

You do not have to utter anything you do not want to utter,” I told her, and she said, “Then I would never utter another word again.” “You do not have to do anything that you do not want to do.” “Then I would never do anything again.

I realized I was on a something island. 'How did I get here,' I wondered, surrounded by Nothing, "and how can I get back?

It is unrealistic to think you can have an inflexible identity that never has to give or take or make compromises.

The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you.

[Grandfather] would manufacture funnies with Grandmother before she died about how he was in love with other women who were not her. She knew it was only funnies because she would laugh in volumes. 'Anna,' he would say, 'I am going to marry that one with the pink hat.' And she would say, 'To whom are you going to marry her?' And he would say, 'To me.' I would laugh very much in the back seat, and she would say to him, 'But you are no priest.' And he would say, 'I am today.' And she would say, 'Today you believe in God?' And he would say, 'Today I believe in love.

I usually write away from home, in coffee shops, on trains, on planes, in friends’ houses. I like places where there’s stuff going on that you can lift your eyes, see something interesting, overhear a conversation.