What I wanted was to write a memoir that was immersive rather than reflective, to resurrect a long-gone version of my own consciousness. I kept expecting that sooner or later the effort would come to seem like second nature to me, but it never did.

Anyone who has ever experienced love knows that you can have too much or too little. You can have love that parches, love that defeats. You can have love measured out in the wrong proportions. It's like your sunlight and water - the wrong kind of love is just as likely to stifle hope as it is to nourish it.

There was no one alive who did not contribute his share of mystery to the world.

You have a pet theory, one you have been turning over for years, that life itself is a kind of Rube Goldberg device, an extremely complicated machine designed to carry out the extremely simple task of constructing your soul.

I might not remember how the sky looked on any given day. I do remember, though, what it was like to be a boy beneath a sky.

I always try to stay as quiet as possible about a book until it's finished.

I was also ready to believe, though, that whatever good things I had managed to set upright could topple at any second.