I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but self-preservation stops me. Once someone hurts you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse

The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks think they can get something for nothing. Marks think they can get what they don’t deserve and could never deserve. Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad. Marks think they’re going to go home one night and have the girl they’ve loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back. Marks forget that whenever something’s too good to be true, that’s because it’s a con.

It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.

We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.

Mine. The language of love is like that, possessive. That should be the first warning that it's not going to encourage anyone's betterment.

I can learn to live with guilt. I don't care about being good.

Crippled things are always more beautiful. It's the flaw that brings out beauty.