Feeling someone else's anger is bad; being left alone is worse.

If there wasn't a word for it, would we realize our masochism as much?

I had a sense then of how if we truly understood how many of the unimportant things we do will end up outliving us, we'd never be able to go on.

And I find myself saying, “It wasn’t really about her.” And finding it’s true. What do you mean?” Norah asks. It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn’t about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.

Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.

Why do we feel the need to disconnect in order to connect?