She had a brainy girls discomfort about her own beauty and its effects on folks.

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.

In reality, genuine epiphanies are extremely rare. In contemporary adult life maturation & acquiescence to reality are gradual processes. Modern usage usually deploys epiphany as a metaphor. It is usually only in dramatic representations, religious iconography, and the 'magical thinking' of children that insight is compressed to a sudden blinding flash.

Truly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around.

Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.

He knew what the Beats know and what the great tennis player knows, son: learn to do nothing, with your whole head and body, and everything will be done by what's around you.

There is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.