Growing up had made her crabby, which happens to the best of us.

There’s something inherent in human nature that has us constructing narratives to explain a world that is otherwise chaotic and opaque. Life is little more than a series of overlapping stories about who we are, where we came from, and how we struggle to survive. What we call news isn’t news at all: wars, murders, famines, plagues – death in all its forms. It’s folly to assign meaning to every chance event, yet we do it all the time.

He looked like an actor who’d star in some movie about a doomed love affair between an heiress and a park ranger. I thought it was probably inappropriate to fling myself against him and bury my nose in his chest.

The Latin term pro bono, as most attorneys will attest, roughly translated means for boneheads and applies to work done without charge.

Another one of life’s little jokes. I thought it was a tumor ’til it started to kick.

When it comes to work, it isn’t so much what we do or how much we’re paid; it’s the satisfaction we take in doing it.

The practice of baring all, analyzing every nuance embedded in a quarrel, is a surefire way to keep an argument alive. Better to establish a temporary peace and revisit the conflict later. Often, by then, both parties have decided the issue isn’t worth the relationship.

You can’t go back to something once it’s dead.

I’m always aware that under the spritely twitter of birds, bones are being crunched and ribbons of flesh are being stripped away, all of it the work of bright-eyed creatures without feeling or conscience. I don’t look to nature for comfort or serenity.

It’s fun to horse around with danger.