To be a kid is to be invisible and to listen, and to interpret things that aren't necessarily meant for you to hear--because how else do you find out about the world?

Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess.

At the simplicity of the gesture, he felt a pang: the raw nerve of his loneliness exposed.

I settled in with The Uninvited Guests thinking I knew what kind of Edwardian pleasures were in store: the fraught dinner party in an endangered, rambling house, the feuding family, the rich suitor, the disruptive visitors. The novel has all of those delightful things, but it also defied every one of my expectations. I saw none of it coming. I read it in one breathless sitting, and finished wanting to give it to everyone I know.

The force with which he wanted it both ways made him grit his teeth. What kind of fool wanted it only one way?

The role of the human brain was to rationalize suffering.

To be a kid is to be invisible and to listen, and to interpret things that aren't necessarily meant for you to hear--because how else do you find out about the world?