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.

I am concentrating docilely on the question why U.S. restrooms always appear to us as infirmaries for public distress, the place to reagain control.

[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.

I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.

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

I think the only thing for me, the tricky thing with the footnotes, is that they are an irritant, and they require a little extra work, and so they either have to be really germane or they have to be kind of fun to read.

The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness.