I wasn't sure I could make it through another hour of his company without throwing my stapler at his head.

Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it.

One of my da's tragedies was always the fact that he was bright enough to understand just how comprehensively he had shat all over his life.

We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

Real isn't what they try to tell you. Time isn't. Grown-ups hammer down all these markers, bells, schedules, coffee-breaks, to stake down time so you'll start believing it's something small and mean, something that scrapes flake after flake off of everything you love till there's nothing left; to stake you down so you don't lift off and fly away, somersaulting through whirlpools of months, skimming through eddies of glittering seconds, pouring handfuls of hours over your upturned face.

I love writing. I feel ridiculously lucky that this is what I get to do all day.