Life is a whoopee cushion, a chair pulled away just as you were taking a seat.

I need to get lost and sometimes my characters lead me to places I don't expect to go.

When I was a kid... I needed to belong.

Love grows from the rich foam of forgiveness, mongrels make good dogs, and the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.

Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.

I thought about how love was always the thing that did that - smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt.

Only there's two sides to every story, you know. You just remember that.