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.

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

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault.

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.