I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut.

She told her therapist it reminded her of coming home the summer after her freshman year at Rutgers, stepping back into the warm bath of family and friends, loving it for a week or two, and then feeling trapped, dying to return to school, missing her roommates and her cute new boyfriend, the classes and the parties and the giggly talks before bed, understanding for the first time that that was her real life now, that this, despite everything she'd ever loved about it, was finished for good.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it.

It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.

They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.