The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.

Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?

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.

...logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.

Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever ore power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.

Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.