Greeting Cards Routinely Tell Us Everybody Deserves

Then You Begin To Give Up The Very Idea Of Belonging. Suddenly This Thing, This Belonging,it Seems Like Some Long, Dirty Lie ... And I Begin To Believe That Birthplaces Are Accidents, That Everything Is An Accident. But If You Believe That, Where Do You Go? What Do You Do? What Does Anything Matter?

It’s Such A Confidence Trick, Writing A Novel. The Main Person You Have To Trick Into Confidence Is Yourself. This Is Hard To Do Alone.

It Wasn't Like The Spare Rooms Of Immigrants - Packed To The Rafters With All That They Have Ever Possessed, No Matter How Defective Or Damaged, Mountains Of Odds And Ends - The Stand Testament To The Fact That They Have Things Now, Where Before They Had Nothing.

They Had Nothing To Say To Each Other. A Five-year Age Gap Between Siblings Is Like A Garden That Needs Constant Attention. Even Three Months Apart Allows The Weeds To Grow Up Between You.

If Religion Is The Opiate Of The People, Tradition Is An Even More Sinister Analgesic, Simply Because It Rarely Appears Sinister. If Religion Is A Tight Band, A Throbbing Vein, And A Needle, Tradition Is A Far Homelier Concoction: Poppy Seeds Ground Into Tea; A Sweet Cocoa Drink Laced With Cocaine; The Kind Of Thing Your Grandmother Might Have Made.