The severing of an established connection is exponentially more painful than the rejection of an attempted connection.

I'm not afraid of new things. I'm just afraid of feeling alone even when there's somebody else there. I'm afraid of feeling bad. Maybe that's selfish, but it's the way I feel.

The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

This is nourishing, redemptive we become less alone inside.