Picture it in your mind's nostril: you get in a cab in time to catch twin thugs named Vomit and Cologne assaulting a defenseless pine-tree air freshener.

and there's something about having an especially different name that makes it difficult to imagine what you would be like as a Jennifer.

I can say with a solid degree of authority that I am a selfish person. I spontaneously forget the names of more people than not, unless I want to make out with them. I will take the last square of toilet paper off the roll without thinking twice. I tip taxi drivers so poorly I'm amazed none of them have run over my foot while speeding off.

I think it's hard to have a full-time job and write fiction, but for essays, you need to be in the world.

If you have to ask someone to change, to tell you they love you, to bring wine to dinner, to call you when they land, you can't afford to be with them.

No affair that begins with such an orchestrated overture can end on a simple note.

The search for one's first professional job is not unlike a magical love potion: when one wants to fall in love with the next thing one sees, one generally does.