Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i.e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.

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

I had four hundred thousand pages of continental philosophy and lit theory in my head. And by God, I was going to use it to prove to him that I was smarter than he was.

She took a sort of abject pride in her mecilessness toward herself.

The fun of reading as "an exchange between consciousnesses, a way for human beings to talk to each other about stuff we can't normally talk about."

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

The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still "are" human beings, now. Or can be.