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.

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

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.

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

My mythic version of America is very much about parents and children, and in my experience, the suburban setting is where that particular drama plays out. Which isn't to say that there aren't parents and children in cities or on farms. I just don't know them.

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.