....basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste.

Almost anything that you pay close, direct attention to becomes interesting.

I was always either so unreasonably and pointlessly happy that no one place could seem to contain me, or so melancholy, so sick and silly with sadness that there was no place I could stomach the thought of entering. I hated it here. And I have never been as happy as when I was here. And these two things together confront me with the beak and claws of the True.

I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.

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

The assumption that you everyone else is like you. That you are the world. The disease of consumer capitalism. The complacent solipsism.