Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year-old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children and fortune believes in God.

I know a number of people who - from the comments they make - are going to vote for [Donald] Trump when that curtain closes. But let's keep it real honest here: They are voting for a xenophobic, anti-Latino white supremacist - don't try to pretty it up. This is now the age when people want to be white supremacists, but they don't actually want to be known for it.

She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.

You know how it is when you get back with somebody you’ve loved. It felt better than it ever was, better than it ever could be again

This country wants to live in the illusion that it is tolerant but also wants to be able to practice intolerance.

Anger has a way of returning.

In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.