Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress.

Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy.

In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.

People will listen to you only when they know you're dying, otherwise they're just waiting for their turn to talk.

The girl traced the outline of her lover's shadow so she would always have a record of how he looked.

We opened our hearts. Hear me, heal me, save me, believe me.

Think of spoiled cat food and ulcerated cankers and expired donor organs. That's how beautiful she looks.