Anybody's true nature is bullshit. There is no human soul. Emotion is bullshit. Love is bullshit.

you ever been trapped in a world where you're everyone's worst nightmare?

You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.

Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

Regret, Daisy knew, was the only confirmation of a well-lived life. If you didn't occasionally go too far, you weren't going anywhere.

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.

A good story isn't the one that shuts everyone down and sort of leaves them in silent awe. A good story is one that, even before you finish the anecdote, you can see their eyes shining because it has so resonated with something from their own lives that everyone in the group has a version of the same story and they cannot wait to tell it, and that they're going to compete to make their version even more extreme than your version. So your version is just a seed.