The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold.

In my godless household, poems were the closest we came to sacred speech -- the only prayers said.

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

Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.

When you do try to picture the boys who do ask you out, they're absolutely featureless, like old carvings eroded by centuries of rain and wind.

It strikes me that whatever advantages there are to being a boy--getting to stay out late and having other people wash your clothes and bring you plates of stuff--get undercut by having to play football.

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.