Forgiveness has its comforts, but it can never give you back what you've lost.

I’m living in separate universes, and I have no idea where I actually belong.

And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will feel like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benetar or the Cure on the soundtrack.

The thing about living alone is that it gives you a lot of time to think. You don't necessarily reach any conclusions, because wisdom is largely a function of intelligence and self-awareness, not time on your hands. But you do become very good at thinking yourself into endless loops of desperation in half the time it would take a normal person.

I may not be old but I’m too old to have this much nothing

Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word. It's really crafting this whole piece from nothing.

It's hard to imagine her ever having felt lost, but it's impossible to know the people your parents were before they were your parents.