You give people their privacy, and in return you all get to stay friends.

I had built this philosophy carefully over the years, and I believed in it, and I still believe in it, with one important amendment that the flour taught me.

The amendment is this: there is a difference between respecting someone’s privacy and refusing to know them.

For six months I told myself I was doing the first, when in fact, at least about that one shut door, I was doing the second.

Real respect for privacy is generous and relaxed; it does not need to know, but it would be glad to.