Some strangers become more important to you than family, maybe because you're not expected to love them. You can leave them whenever you want to. They can, too. Every moment together is a choice.

A writer turns his life into material, and if you’re in his life, he uses yours, too.

The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.

What was more humiliating, I wondered: having to beg for someone's cold chicken bones or being offered them?

I've been told my old city possesses a 'thriving arts scene,' whatever that is; personally, I think artists should lie low and stick to their work, not line-dance through the parks.

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?

Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.