PhD, MFA, self-taught — the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity… - Alexander Chee

Why is it so loud when you cry from grief? Because it must be loud enough for the missing one to hear, though it never can be. Loud enough to scale the sky and the backs of angels, or to fall through the earth to where they rest.

I wanted to be a teacher; my namesake was a teacher, and ever since knowing that, a tiny part of me has known, I was meant to stand in front of a group of children. I love my job, my fast students, my bright swimmers. Love watching someone figure something out and then use it, watch the idea go from me to them and see how it belongs to them afterward. Not mine at all. And afterward, you can only wonder at how it happens. It doesn't happen all the time. But when it does, it feels like this is what magic wants to be, when it grows up.

The strange amber twilight I’d lived with was gone, and in its place was some terrible new brightness. I’d gone from feeling lost in a dream to lost in wakefulness, as if I might never sleep again.