The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand.

There are very few innocent sentences in writing.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

Do not underestimate objects.

In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians makes us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about.

Mediocrity is contextual.

Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se.