They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.

I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read?

The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the ways I feel his lack of love for me. But we are managing.

Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.

She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth... People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane.

Better to think of writing, of what one does, as an activity, rather than an identity to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun.

I did think reviewers were supposed to be polite about story collections - collections are rather delicate creatures in the literary environment - but not everybody got this memo, I guess.