“If writers possess a common temperament, it's that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave.”

“Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.”

“It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.”

“The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.”

“It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection.”

“From the first winter afternoon in the Harvard ball fields, "Oh no--I need you" had become an admission and a clarion call--the tenet of dependency that forms the weft of friendship. We needed each other so that we could count the endless days of forests and flat water, but the real need was soldered by the sadder, harder moments--discord or helplessness or fear--that we dared to expose to each other. It took me years to grasp that this grit and discomfort in any relationship are an indicator of closeness, not it's opposite.”

“Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare.”