He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and...
I don't have any talent for vacations.
Questions are for the benefit of every student, not just the one raising his hand. If you don't have the starch to stand up in class and admit what you don't understand, then I don't have the time to...
We shared ideas like sweaters, with easy exchange and lack of ownership.
It was a miraculous thing to be able to watch the person you love undetected,
One must not be shy where language is concerned.
A pain exploded up high in her chest and spit her out of this terrible world.
If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.
But together they moved through the world quite easily, two small halves of courage making a brave whole.
I wanted two girls," she said. "You and your sister. I wanted exactly what I had. Other people's children are too hard
I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed th...
The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasn't entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed...
The trouble with good fortune is that people tend to equate it with personal goodness, so that if things are going well for us and as well for others, we think they must have done something to have br...
I do not believe that there were more happy marriages before divorce became socially acceptable, that people tried harder, got through their rough times, and were better off. I believe that more peopl...
He was so close to her then that they owned every molecule of air in the tiny room and the air grew heavy with their desire and worked to move them together.
What we were told repeatedly was to listen: God had a vocation for all of us and if we paid close attention and were true to ourselves we would know His intention.
The dinner was a huge production, with kids stashed in the den to eat off card tables like a collection of understudies who dreamed of one day breaking into the dining room.
For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for e...
When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.
Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our...