It is my belief that people who speak of high school with a sugary fondness are bluffing away early-onset Alzheimer's.

It's never good to fall in love with someone whom you'd have to stab in the eyeballs to elicit a response.

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

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

At the end of each year, I sit on the floor and go page by page through the old calendar, inking annual events into the new one, all the while watching my year in 'dinner withs' skate by. When I'm done, I save the old calendar in the box of the new one and put it with the others on a shelf.

Because I am a horrible flincher, contact lenses are not an option. I'm always envious of contact-wearers. There are endless reasons to take off one's glasses during the day and, as I have grown older, what I don't see has become increasingly pronounced.

I called my mother immediately to inform her that she was a bad parent. "I can't believe you let us watch this. We ate dinner in front of this." "Everyone watched Twin Peaks," was her response. "So, if everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it, too?" "Don't be silly," she laughed, "of course I would, honey. There'd be no one left on the planet. It would be a very lonely place.