And sometimes you held somebody’s hand just to prove that you were still alive, and that another human being was there to testify to that fact.

A landline is an anchor - busy signals, long distance bills, missed connections and all.

She didn't want to run, period. It made her breasts feel like they were going to detach from her body.

October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

Have you ever heard sculptors say that they don’t actually sculpt an object; they sculpt away everything that isn’t the object?

Take your vitamins. Don't drink vodka. Get used to empire waistlines.

You look different. You look unsettling.’ ‘You look like you,’ he said. ‘You with the volume turned up.