Many people believe that evil is the presence of something. I think it's the absence of something.

People who stay in the same town with the same friends for their entire lives never get a chance to find out who they can really be, because they will always be considered as who they were.

Denial: my family heritage. If you don't ask the questions, the truth will never inconvenience you.

The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a gift.

Writers are first and foremost observers. We lose ourselves in the watching and then the telling of the world we find. Often we feel on the fringes, in the margins of life. And that's where we belong. What you are a part of, you cannot observe.

Judgment is such a useful shield, isn't it? We can hide behind it, rise above others on its crest, keep ourselves safe and separate.

The woman I was seems hopelessly naive. I envy her.