...Genuine pathological openness is about as seductive as Tourette's Syndrome.

...loneliness is not a function of solitude.

No one can call themselves a writer until he or she has written at least fifty stories.

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.

It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most "familiarity" is meditated and delusive.

True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care—with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.

It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.