I believe in giving as honest an answer as I can. Because perhaps if people spent more time being honest with each other, especially with children, there would be less unhappiness in the world.

But Finn was like no one else. He could be funny, teasing, informative all at once. I was discovering that smart, engaged dialogue with a man is extremely erotic. Cleverness is an aphrodisiac.

I take in his smooth cheeks, his rough chin and jaw, the developing wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.’We fall in love with somebody who maybe seems like a bad match,’ Tully says, ‘and...

I was thinking how most people don’t make you feel much of anything at all. Don’t make you feel like time spent with them has grace, like every moment in their company is a gift....

I cannot deny that Vera, in her own way–in the way of all human beings who are kind and not cruel–really is lovely.

But nothing’s really free, is it? People always make you pay one way or another.

It might interest you to know,” Tully says, “that there’s a reason people build miniatures. Doesn’t matter if it’s guys laying out model railroads or women decorating dollhouses. It’s about control. It’s about reinventing reality.”...