It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

Must being in love always mean being in pain?

We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.

The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.