It was an oddly satisfying idea to feel bereft as I left my mother this time. We only feel bereft when we’re deprived of something meaningful.

Wyatt told me once that if tenderness were a disease, I’d be terminal.

Hearing my brother’s words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss—wild and wired with no place to put those feelings.

I turned my ear toward the door because I heard him breathing. When you’re alone and afraid, the simple sound of the steady in and out of air being drawn by another person is good medicine.

I found I could only glance at him for tiny moments and then I had to look away. He was perfect enough to hurt my feelings for a long time, and I wanted to let him.

Then let me be your mercy, ” he said. “I’ll never be able to give you smart answers about why we suffer, but I can come into your world and try to be some kind of help to you.

Next to the first Henry and Meg, Henry had written, “Promise?” Well, that genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing her back in.

I smiled at him. Not even Wyatt would have known how to be this honorable when talking about a girl that had hurt him.

Hmmm. What you’re saying is that you’ve never been kissed?” He picked at a string on the blanket under us.

He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest bit crooked.

I could’ve gone on and on but the truth was all that mattered. “My brother died because someone was jealous.

Yeah, Mom, I’ll just keep telling the prince that he has absolutely no shot with me and offend him as often as I can. Great plan.

True creation requires authority and authenticity.

His words were softer than oil yet they were drawn swords.

The reason you want your kids to pay attention in school is you haven't the faintest idea how to do their homework.

My poems, I think, exist in a state of tension between the love of natural beauty and the fear of natural meaninglessness or absurdity.

I am not tempted by God but I love his trappings.

Architects and engineers are among the most fortunate of men since they build their own monuments with public consent, public approval and often public money.

I have adopted clothes from all the projects I'm in. It's really been a while since I've bought anything myself.

Every memory I had growing up was involving a basketball. I didn't go to the prom and stuff like that. It was always basketball for me.

For man also, in health and sickness, is not just the sum of his organs, but is indeed a human organism.