I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.

People who want their love easy don't really want love.

My mother told me many stories about her childhood in Cuba. Living there had a profound impact on her and how she regards herself.

As to the "traditional filler of twenty-first century realist fiction," maybe that is something I avoid. I don't relate to standard psychologizing in novels. I don't really believe that the backstory is the story you need. And I don't believe it's more like life to get it - the buildup of "character" through psychological and family history, the whole idea of "knowing what the character wants." People in real life so often do not know what they want. People trick themselves, lie to themselves, fool themselves. It's called survival, and self-mythology.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

I'm releasing myself from the responsibility of claiming to know when something is good and when it isn't.

The kids I knew growing up who worked on bikes all loved the smell of gas. It is the liquid agent for speed.