I'm really glad that I spent my twenties messing around and having disaster after disaster - with people who were doing likewise - because it's really my greatest treasure now.

When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?

No matter how many luxuries you get, something will be missing. No matter how carefully you choose, you'll never be totally happy.

You kill strangers deliberately so you don't accidentally kill the people you love.

You're safe because you're so trapped inside your culture. Anything you can conceive of is fine because you can conceive of it.

We've spent so much time judging what other people created that we've created very, very little of our own.

Marla tells me how in the wild you don't see old animals because as soon as they age, animals die. If they get sick or slow down, something stronger kills them. Animals aren't meant to get old. Marla lies down on her bed and undoes the tie on her bathrobe, and says our culture has made death something wrong. Old animals should be an unnatural exception. Freaks.