Oh Harry,” [Gwen] said. “I wish I were a different kind of person.”What kind of person, he wanted to know.”Someone,” she said slowly, “who truly loves life.”He was still looking at her, still cradling his...

We look so very different from the way we sound. It’s a shock, similar to hearing your own voice for the first time, when you’re forced to wonder how the rest of you comes across...

The older you get, the closer your loves are to the surface. She was breathing rarefied air, the ether you come upon at high altitudes. I understood finally how long-held grievances and petty smallnesses might...