I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable about this," he says. Say: "Hey. I am a very cool person. I am tough." Show him your bicep.

She smiled at him, with longing. 'Where do you live,' she asked, 'and how do I get there?

the compulsion to read and write - and it seems to me it should be, even must be, a compulsion - is a bit of mental wiring the species has selected, over time, in order, as the life span increases, to keep us interested in ourselves.

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

I don't have a love life. I have a like life.

To write a short story, you have to be able to stay up all night.

You chose love like a belief, a faith, a place, a box for one's heart to knock against like a spook in the house.