The shreiking fight or the out-of-character insult endures forever, while the daily sweetness dissolves like sugar in water.

Your heart, Mary Karr, he'd say. His pen touched my sternum, and it felt for all the world like the point of a dull spear as he said, Your heart knows what your head don't. Or won't.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

I believe in God, but even if you don't, you can believe in a self, the person who is innately who you are. Once you fully become that person, then everything you do will be blessed.

That’s what’s so gorgeous about humanity. It doesn’t matter how bleak our daily lives are, we still fight for the light. I think that’s our divinity. We lean into love, even in the most hideous circumstances. We manage to hope.

A pool game mixes ritual with geometry.

I don't have a copy of my books, and the degree to which I never read them is profound. I never look.