Writing fiction is a resolutely solitary pastime, and I love being with people, so the public side of being an author is, to me, the reward for all the private time invested. And I love teaching to a fault; I have a hard time not giving away a lot of my own writing energy to my students.

When most of us talk to our dogs, we tend to forget that they're not people.

All I meant was that people take their same old lives wherever they go. No place is perfect enough to strip you of that. And some places have a way of magnifying your demons, or of, I don't know, giving them pep pills.

Mind who you love. For that matter, mind how you are loved.

Here we are - despite the delays, the confusion, and the shadows en route - at last, or for the moment, where we always intended to be.

Now is almost always the better choice. You never know about later.

Knowing and understanding the people we love most is a process that continues well beyond their deaths... and is never complete.