It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.

I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty which probably doesn’t augur well for my longevity

For those who've never experienced a sunrise in the rural midwest, it's roughly as soft and romantic as someone's abruptly hitting the lights in a dark room.

Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it.

This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn't engage anybody.

To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.