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

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

His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him.

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.

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.

The role of the human brain was to rationalize suffering.