All over China, parents tell their children to stop complaining and to finish their quadratic equations and trigonometric functions because there are sixty-five million American kids going to bed with no math at all.

What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy's other half.

It's the world, you live in it, even if some boy has made a fool of you.

Any other vexations to report?" he asks. "I love the word 'vexations.'" "It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that." "Just the usual ones," she says. "How was the weekend?" "Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?

we become the stories we tell ourselves

She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric.

Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular?