i learned that predators don't intentionally choose the weak or old or sick. they kill what they can, which means the slow members of the pack. thus, they strengthen the very gene pool they're feeding from. the threshold for what is weak, old or sick gets raised, and the strength, speed and instincts of new generations of hunters grow. a beautiful, self-perpetuating system where evolution is the antithesis of entropy.

I learned to pick up each piece, one at a time, from my pile of potential matches and try to fit it from any angle into the socket, then discard it and move on. Each failure is meaningless. It's not me, it's the pieces, and I have to, absolutely must, try each and every piece every possible way until I find one that fits. They aren't failures, they're steps, small bits of progress.

The time flies. The time flies feed on rotting clocks.

Only everyone forgets how seldom our memory is accurate. Having more memory is just a way of distorting a greater amount of the past"p.193

A person’s life story is equal to what they have plus what they want most in the world, minus what they’re actually willing to sacrifice for it.

When you could discern a real threat from everything else, it was called caution. When you couldn't, it was called paranoia. ... You cannot separate paranoia from knowledge. The more you know, the more possibilities you see. The more possibilities you see, the more possibilities someone else sees. The more "someones" there are, the more "they" there are. It's a matter of simple math before you realize that They might not like you.

It's taken me years of practice to learn how to act natural.