A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate...

I suspected, however, that I wasn’t homesick for anything I would find at home when I returned. The longing was for what I wouldn’t find: the past and all the people and places there were...

And who’s to say that just because something lasts only a short time, it has little value?

I suppose that, after the passion of love, water rights have caused more trouble than anything else to the human species.