I grew up in a family that believed love was at work in the world. I guess that's a religious idea, though of course it needn't be.

The night is full of stories. They float up like miasmas, as though the dead leave their dreams in the earth where you bury them, only to have them rise to meet you in sleep. Mostly the scenes are familiar, but sometimes everything is strange, the people unknown.

I liked books - the respite and privacy of them - books about plants and the formation of ice and the business of world wars. Whenever I sank into them I felt free.

We live in specific places. We are marked by a place.

Surviving is the strongest memory I have; the sense of having walked on water.

Past tense offers authority, distance, and present tense offers emotional immediacy.

And though I've lived to be an old man with my very own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.