You learn a lot, writing fiction.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard.

Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.

It seems to me that everything that happens to us is a disconcerting mix of choice and contingency.

History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.