The story comes around, pushing at our brains, and soon we are trying to ravel back to the beginning, trying to put families into order and make sense of things. But we start with one person, and soon another and another follows, and still another, until we are lost in the connections.

I prefer to have some beliefs that don't make logical sense.

Don't read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience.

When small towns find they cannot harm the strangest of their members, when eccentrics show resilience, they are eventually embraced and even cherished.

Her mind was present because she was always gone. Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty. Life was simple. Her husband returned and she served him with indifferent patience this time. When he asked what had happened to her heat for him, she gestured to the west. The sun was setting. The sky was a body of fire.

Money helps, though not so much as you think when you don't have it.

There is no such thing as a complete lack of order, only a design so vast it appears unrepetitive up close.