Flannery craved a cigarette. Her nerves were so tense that only nicotine could soothe them, and for the first time, she genuinely understood how the drug worked. It wasn't just a prop or an affectation. It was a tool for mental health.

The gap between the inner and outer self is one I've found interesting, even essential, about the way we move through the world. In The Delivery Room, I enjoyed traveling back and forth between the perspectives of the patients and that of the therapist - with the irony that with your therapist, you are at least supposed to be your most authentic self.

No wonder you want to be a writer. How can you not, with all that behind you? You practically are a novel already.

Those who are apparently absent can feel more present than the people right in front of you.

I plan to learn enough to read you like a book.

This was another item about growing up: you encountered all the cliches of love and loss and heartbreak.

It could not always be love in the afternoon and passion in the night, gifts given, notes written, meals fed to each other. It can't all be like that.