She stood in the mirror portrait very near Margaret, close next to her, good as a mother or a friend.

When an eighty-five pound mammal licks your tears away, then tries to sit on your lap, it's hard to feel sad.

I hold a strict policy of automatic grudges against people everyone likes.

I wanted to call her a bitch. I almost did. But I couldn't get the word out. I started wondering whether that'd be sexist, and then I started thinking about how many thoughts could squeeze into the tiniest pause between words, and then I started thinking that now I was thinking about my thoughts, and also thinking about the fact that I was thinking about my thoughts, and how that could go on forever, as if my first thought had been placed between two mirrors and now there was an infinite, recursive series of thoughts. And then I thought about how everyone else probably thought about thoughts too, and how there were so many thoughts out there, an oppressive consciousness ladled over the globe like a thick, congealing sauce.

Everybody has unattainable crushes too and imaginary friends. Some part of their mind that they talk to when they can't deal with talking to real people.

I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy - it's serious business.