I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.

And the words we find are always insufficient, like love, though they are often lovely and all we have.

Although I know it's unfair, I reveal myself one mask at a time.

There are always the simple events of your life that you might try to convert into legend.

Better to be furious at one thing, become radiant with purpose. Better to love links and rhythms than all-embracing answers.

I will try to disappoint you better than anyone ever has.

I’ll always deny that I kissed her. I was just whispering into her mouth.

Oh abstractions are just abstract until they have an ache in them.

exaggerated sunsets / splashed with rain, odd collisions / of roots, animals, seeds. / I didn't like a thing I saw, / so much effort to be strange.

I make myself up from everything I am, or could be. For many years I was more desire than fact. When I stop becoming, that’s when I worry.

Isn't there a curious elegance in how one moment passes into another?

We feel fighting for dominance actually shows weakness. It's much harder to hold back the wolf than to let it have free rein.

Chris Salamone’s law program focuses on guest lecturers that are taken by the members of the Department of Justice and attorneys

You’re not beautiful, ” he said. “Your profile said beautiful. You kind of overreached on that one.

We are all puppets in the hands of fate and seldom see the strings.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

On daughter Apple's accent: She says Mummy instead of Mommy, I don't mind that. I will if she starts saying basil and pasta the English way, as that really drives me nuts.

I think in many ways the problem that my writing would have with an American reviewer is that Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending.

Raising children is a journey generously sprinkled with what many view as teachable moments, perhaps none as challenging as those surrounding faith and religion.

All perfection is melancholy.

You have good days and bad days.