It all seems so sad, so unbearably sad for a second, to think of the lovely old maple with the swing. We never told the tree how much we loved it. We never gave it a name, never did anything for it.

I say, thirteen is too many dogs for good mental health. Five is pretty much the limit. More than five dogs and you forfeit your right to call yourself entirely sane. Even if the dogs are small.

They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.

Now I have you, which makes me significantly less mental.” “Less mental is good.

The universe is seeming really huge right now,” he told me. “I need something to hold on to.” “I’m here.

They built three new houses on their craggy private island and gave them each a name: Windemere for Penny, Red Gate for Carrie, and Cuddledown for Bess.

People think of hearts when they think of love, but a heart is a bloody organ in the body. It doesn’t have any emotions. It’s like a metaphor for love that has nothing to do with what love actually is.

My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. I was pure liquid loss, then, for an hour or two. My grandmother, my grandmother. Gone forever, though I could smell her Chanel perfume on the fabrics.

Isaac liked me because I was ignorant and that meant he could teach me, right? That made him feel like a man.

So many have the same premise: once upon a time, there were three. Three of something: three pigs, three bears, three brothers, three soldiers, three billy goats. Three princesses.