The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.

Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.

I am in flight from my story every day, and it dogs me like a faithful stray.

The pediatrician must have thought me one of those neurotic mothers who craved distinction for her child but who in our civilization's latter-day degeneracy could only conceive of the exceptional in terms of deficiency or affliction.

No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that they exist. And his own adult future isn't real to him, either. Makes it that much easier to throw away.

When you've been afraid of something for long enough and it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. For in the belly of the badness there is no more fear.

The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one.