I need eight hours to get maybe 20 minutes of work done. I had one of those yesterday: seven hours of self-loathing.

You can't ever guess at life, at pain. All pain is real, and all pain is personal. It's the most personal thing we have. It eats each of us differently.

Loneliness is just a thing that I'm not personally interested in. So far, it hasn't been on my docket of things to write about.

You know, it's been proven that 35 to 40 hours a year with one-on-one attention, a student can get one grade level higher

Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic.

My parents told me they were going to kill me at least a thousand times growing up. "I'm gonna kill you," and then they'd whack me on the side of the head or whatever. And "What's wrong with you?" And "I'm gonna lock you up," and "I'm gonna throw you out the window," and "I'm gonna kill you." You know, all these things that you say in the heat of a normal chaotic household.

They were so in love with the world, and so disappointed in every aspect of it.