“I see it all through the lens of my camerathe flurry of movement, the venue staff in black T-shirts, giving orders into their headsets. As I take it all in, my mind weighs the texture, the composit...”

“I want to reach back into my history with a grade-school pink eraser, scrubbing away my decisions like mistakes on a math test. To bad I drew my mistakes in ink.”

“I think it's the bravest thing in the world - to run straight at love, even knowing how badly you could get hurt.”

“Laughter feels like our flotation device -- it won't pull us out of the storm, but it might carry us through, if we can just hang on.”

“I see it all through the lens of my camera—the flurry of movement, the venue staff in black T-shirts, giving orders into their headsets. As I take it all in, my mind weighs the texture, the composi...”

“Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, '...”

“If you feel so emptySo used up, so let downIf you feel so angrySo ripped off so stepped onYou're not the only oneRefusing to back downYou're not the only oneSo get up”

“Am I the reason you breatheOr am I the reason you cry?”

“A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.”

“Prose divides shame into stations.”

“He lifted his arm that had been resting on her shoulders and gazed at the words she had written on his hand. He had been branded as cattle are branded to show whom they belong to. The cold mountain...”

“He wanted the songs, the stories, to save everybody.”