Other memories stick, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t. They’re like a song you hate but can’t ever get completely out of your head, and this song becomes the background noise of your entire life, snippets of lyrics and lines of music floating up and then receding, a crazy kind of tide that never stops.

Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.

I get a message from my dad. In the mood I'm in, I tear up to see his name in my inbox, and imagine him down the hall in bed, propped on pillows, emailing me. "Hon,Enjoyed our gelato date the other night. I just want to say I'm proud of you for a lot of reasons. Also, I've attached a picture of my foot."He's such a weirdo goofball. I love him.

I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there’s stuff you don’t know, can’t know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I’m convinced there are parts of myself inside them.

Your greatest creation is your creative life. It's all in your hands. Rejection can't take it away; reviews can't take it away. The life you create for yourself as an artist, may be the only thing that's really yours. Create a life you can center yourself in calmly as you wait for your work to grow.

My first published book, Story of a Girl, was the fourth book I wrote.