It is better to lose than never to have had.

Why didn't he say goodbye? I gave myself a bruise. Why didn't he say 'I love you'?

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.

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

Succotash my Balzac, dipshiitake.

I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.