“I had this theory. It was based loosely on the unremarkable observation that the old are always looking back with longing while the young, with the same longing, look ahead. One man remembers what ...”

“Once she even successfully argued on behalf of my older brother, Dan, getting a BBGun, a weapon which he promptly turned against his younger siblings, outfitting us in helmet and leather jacket and...”

“It hurts so bad that I cannot save him, protect him, keep him out of harm's way, shield him from pain. What good are fathers if not for these things?”

“The realization that God could be female required the consideration that the Devil could be also.”

“The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish.”

“Well the themes for me were and remain sex and love and grief and death - the things that make us and undo us, create and destroy, how we breed and disappear and the emotional context that surround...”

“July 24, 6:03 A.M.The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff...Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for...”

“A book is a suicide postponed.”

“How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?”