Overhead, the stars were wheeling and infinite, a complicated mobile made by giants.

Books are more real when you read them outside.

Afterward, Isabel drove me home and I shut myself in the study with Rilke, and I read and I wanted. And leaving you (there arent words to untangle it) Your life, fearful and immense and blossoming, So that, sometimes frustrated, and sometimes understanding Your life is sometimes a stone in you, and then, a star I was beginning to undertand poetry.

Thanks,” I say, and Finn looks uncomfortable. Mum used to say he was like a faerie; he didn't like to be thanked. I add, “Sorry.

My friend is having his period," I told the pizza guy, and handed him his tip. "He needs Britney and extra cheese to get him through it. I'm trying to be supportive.

This is about as comforting as a cold brick when you're lonely.

I was suddenly struck by how dissimilar we were. It occurred to me that if Grace and I were objects, she would be an elaborate digital clock, synced up with the World Clock in London with technical perfection, and I’d be a snow globe – shaken memories in a glass ball.