I am standing here in the shed, and I'm waiting to see if my seeds are going to poke out ofthe dirt. I don't know if it's too early to look for signs of life or if, this time, winter has claimed my family for good.

Rilke says: Verweilung, auch am Verstrautesten nicht, ist uns gegeben - We are not allowed to linger, even with what is most intimate.

She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.

Sea does the sweep of his eyes that he does, the one that goes from my head to my toes and back again and makes me feel that he's scanning the depths of my soul and teasing out my motivations and sins. It's worse than confession with Father Mooneyham. At the end of it, he says, "If you help, this will go faster.

We all, one day, realize that we’re not going to be kids forever and we’re going to grow up.

Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid.

I don't trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of it.