For women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in an accumulation of booty; for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it.

Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.

Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment.

A boy is a dangerous animal.

In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose that's prospectively boring to strangers.

...hoarders of guilty secrets are inevitably consumed with appearances.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.