A writer's job is to cultivate what can go wrong. You're always looking for that dramatic arc of where things can fail.

In good old Colonial Dunsboro, masochism is a valuable job skill. It is in most jobs.

There will always be an underground.

Everyone's in their own personal coma.

You grow up to become living proof of your parents' limitations. Their less-than masterpiece.

As a lower-class kid, I was raised to think success would be owning stuff. Having that great job, too. Now I find my parents' dream was wrong. You never really own anything. And you're never really finished as a person.

Anything pretty,' Claire will tell you, 'it's only for sale because no one wants it.