We have this huge discourse on family in this country, but no one deconstructs it the same way. People talk about "the American family." The right wi….

I didn't think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be..

If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime..

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get..

I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always..

Young men and women come of age when they look at their parents and see them not only as their parents but as people. They gain a lot of compassion, ….

I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful..

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in l….

Why do we smile? Why do we laugh? Why do we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why….

I'm an ex-Catholic priest. I have such a complex relationship to Catholicism. On the one hand, if I called myself a Catholic it would have to be a ve….

It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has….

The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter..

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand..

But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry..

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place..

For a moment, I thought of the word happy and it was a word that just, well, it felt like it was visiting me. I knew it wouldn’t last for very long a….

You are thirst and thirst is all I know.

Summer was here again. Summer, summer, summer. I loved and hated summers. Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in ….

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain..

Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes..

Absent parents aren't abusive per se. They're neglectful. They love in a very imperfect way. There are parents like that, and they do love their daug….