This is not a matter of virtue-it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

Lucky people develop a relationship with a certain kind of art that becomes spiritual, almost religious, and doesn’t mean, you know, church stuff, but it means you’re just never the same.

There are secrets within secrets, though--always.

The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

I'm very bright, but I'm terrified of sounding like someone who thinks he's very bright-because those people are assholes.

If Realism called it like it saw it, Metafiction simply called it as it saw itself seeing itself see it.