I mean, it's not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It's, like, part of you for good.

Usually when I finish the draft of a book, I'm sure I'll never write another one. I'm just that tired and sick of myself. But then another idea starts percolating. It usually begins with the narrator's name, then some idea that intrigues me about her life or situation. I try to ignore it as long as I can, because I know when I start writing, I'll be right back into it, every single day. But eventually, I just have to. It's a compulsion!

You know," I told him,"if you don't know how to eat a cupcake, that's nothing to be ashamed of." Now he did smile. "I know how to eat a cupcake." "Sure you do." "I do," he said. "I just don't want one of those." "Yeah? Prove it.

You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends.

My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

Hollis " I said "you're messing with me right now aren't you You're in Paris or somewhere and just-" "What " he replied. "No This is the real deal. Here I'll prove it." There was a muffled noise followed by some static. Then I heard my mother recite at a distance in her most droll flat tone "Yes. It is true. Your brother is in love and in my kitchen.

When you can't save yourself or your heart, it helps to be able to save face.