I grew up amongst biologists.

It's probably a form of childish curiosity that keeps me going as a fiction writer. I ... want to open everybody's bureau drawers and see what they keep in there. I'm nosy.

The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.

I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn't as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social media. So if you were found face down on the floor - people did do that quite a bit; usually men, but not always - or fell through plate glass windows or got into scrapes, it became a rumor, and rumors are hard to pin down.

Some travelers think they want to go to foreign places but are dismayed when the places turn out actually to be foreign.

You say, The sensed absence of God and the sensed presence amount to much the same thing, only in reverse.