The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home.

The lives of most people are small tight pallid and sad, more to be mourned than their deaths. We starve at the banquet: We cannot see that there is a banquet because seeing the banquet requires that we see also ourselves sitting there starving-seeing ourselves clearly, even for a moment, is shattering. We are not dead but asleep, dreaming of ourselves.

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.

The entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not.

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

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

God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though-and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.