When we'd gone to Disneyland, the tree house had been my favorite thing in the whole park. If only I'd had no parents watching my every move, if only I'd been a happy, carefree orphan, I'd have hidden...
Trees are as close to immortality as the rest of us ever come.
There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author’s back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up...
The rest of the night was an endless dream sequence directed by David Lynch
She
Nor did I respond with the obvious, that my brother might very well go to jail, probably would someday, but he would never ever call. Three words were scratched in ballpoint blue on the wall above the...
My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to...
I am the daughter of a psychologist. I know that the thing ostensibly being studied is rarely the thing being studied. (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, p. 99)
Hathos, I offered finally and then thoughtfully provided the definition. The pleasure you get from hating something.
Empathy is also a natural human behavior, and natural to chimps as well. When we see someone hurt, our brains respond to some extent as if we’d been hurt ourselves.
Ipecac syrup of happiness. There Lowell would be. With Harlow.
We call them feelings because we feel them.
My sister, Fern. In the whole wide world, my only red poker chip.
It's true that, as my brother grew larger, he also grew dangerous, same as my sister. But they're still ours and we want them back. They're needed here at home.
I wasn't happy, exactly, but I was remembering how happiness felt.
Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she’d always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl’s dream, if she can’t have a vampire.
Tryptophan: a chemical in turkey meat rumored to make you sleepy and careless. One of the many minefields in the landscape of the family Thanksgiving.
There’s science and there’s science, is all I’m saying. When humans are the subjects, it’s mostly not science.)
The sunset you see is always better than the one you don't. More stars are always better than less.
The dogs came racing up the stairs. They danced at Rima's feet, frantic with the need to communicate something to her. Little Timmy's down the well! Feed us ice cream and potato chips! Sometimes there...