I guess, really thinking about it, I always assumed when you missed someone , it was tangible...something real you could grab and hold on to, but it's a not-there feeling.

Friendship...is like pain. Explaining it is impossible.

I guess, really thinking about it, I always assumed when you missed someone , it was tangible...something real you could grab and hold on to, but it's a not-there feeling.

That adolescent me, the girl who was, as I remember her, insecure, unsure, dreaming, yearning, longing, that girl who was hard on herself, who was cowardly and brave, who was confused and determined-that girl who was me-still exists. I call on her when I write. I am the me of today-the person who has become a woman, a mother, a writer. Yet I am the me of all those other days as well. I believe in the reality of that past.

A piece of writing takes exactly as long as it needs to be done right.

All the inane, meaningless noises people make that pass for intelligent conversation. They might as well be pigs grunting in the pen. (92)