I have learned over the course of my many years that it is a bad idea, usually, to investigate piteous weeping but always a fine thing to look into a giggle.

I was a sidelines child: never class president, never team captain, never the one with the most valentines in my box.

I've always been interested in medicine and was pleased when my brother became a doctor. But after thinking seriously about that field, I realized that what intrigued me was not the science, not the chemistry or biology of medicine, but the narrative - the story of each patient, each illness.

Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel.

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

There will always be a place for bunnies to talk in rhyme, but that's not what I do.

It's just that... without the memories it's all meaningless.