Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century.

I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me.

It was almost noon when the plane touched down at the Triad airport on the outskirts of Greensboro. There was a hire car waiting for me; I waved my notepad at the dashboard to transmit my profile, then waited as the seating and controls rearranged themselves slightly, piezoelectric actuators humming. As I started to reverse out of the parking bay, the stereo began a soothing improvisation, flashing up a deadpan title: Music for Leaving Airports 11 June 2008.

No, that’s journalism. The truth is whatever you can’t escape.

On his eighteenth day in the tiger cage, Robert Stoney began to lose hope of emerging unscathed.

For there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold, imposed by force, resisted or escaped.

No one grows up. That's one of the sickest lies they ever tell you. People change. People compromise. People get stranded in situations they don't want to be in… and they make the best of it. But don't try to tell me it's some kind of… glorious preordained ascent into emotional maturity. It's not.