You sense that he's dangerous but don't now why - and wonder if it's because he makes you feel safer than you've ever felt.

With so much sky and so much river, you couldn't help seeing the big picture. It was what you already knew, but crowding into the subway or rushing to a movie, you only saw it for a second, and close up. Now I took a good long look. I'd always heard you couldn't see stars in Manhattan because of all the lights. But here they all were. Here was my night in shining armor.

I feel in some ways I've had a difficult life. And it makes me the kind of writer I am, in what I value, what I respect, what I hold dear.

I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him.

Nice,' I say, realizing only afterward that I've mimicked her, a bad habit of mine; I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.

The only relationships I haven't wrecked right away were the ones that wrecked me later.