I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park and wonder about the people who filled them, what kinds of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing.

Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.

And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.

And that's when he finally tells me his name is Ernest. I'm thinking of giving it away, though. Ernest is so dull, and Hemingway? Who wants a Hemingway?

Dogs are easy. If their tails are up and their eyes are soft, you're in.

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes.

All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.