There is no hatred in my love for you. Only a sadness I feel all the more strongly for my inability to explain or describe it.

'This thing I feel, I can't name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?' — this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it's perilously close to 'Do you like me? Please like me,' which you know quite well that 99% of all the interhuman manipulation and bullshit gamesmanship that goes on goes on precisely because the idea of saying this sort of thing straight out is regarded as somehow obscene.

I had, by thirteen, developed a sort of Taoist hubris about my ability to control via non-control.

Does somebody have an explanation why there's human flesh on the hall window upstairs?

At root, vulgar just means popular on a mass scale. It is the semantic opposite of pretentious or snobby. It is humility with a comb-over. It is Nielsen ratings and Barnum's axiom and the real bottom line. It is big, big business.

I love the way you love, but I hate the way I'm supposed to love you back.

There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration.