Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian words that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn't have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.

If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied.

... and yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way.

There was only today to throw yourself into without thinking about tomorrow, let alone forever. To keep you from thinking, there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. Love is a beautiful liar.

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

This was my one brush with love. Was it love? It felt awful enough. I spent another two years crawling around in the skin of it, smoking too much and growing too thin and having stray thoughts of jumping from my balcony like a tortured heroine in a Russian novel.

To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too-that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.