Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.

I tried out the unfamiliar syllables. They fit. They cracked in my ears like a fist through ice.

The contents of a house can trigger all sorts of revisions to family history.

It is easy to take away the world that we think is so permanent and reliable.

Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position.

I don't pray. When I was young, I vowed I never would be caught begging God. If I want something I get it for myself. I go to church only to show the old hens they don't get me down.

What men call adventures usually consist of the stoical endurance of appalling daily misery.