Sex scenes in books are always like first person, from this male perspective and just about how awesome he is. It feels like such a fantasy.

Sacrifice doesn't really exist on a national level anymore and that's a pretty new thing - most people aren't engaged nationally in some form of service and that changes the way you think about people in your country; you kind of think of them at a distance. And so there's that shift away from some sort of sacrifice - thinking of yourself as the most important thing in the world versus thinking of yourself as some sort of a whole.

It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.

We have fun acting like this, acting like we are incredibly offended. Really, we are just bored to tears with everything.

Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.

The city glitters past us with its sharp edges, reminding us of how tiny, how weak, how totally unimportant we are.

I don't like the fact that no one has any imagination anymore. It doesn't pay to be a dreamer because all they really want you to do is answer the phone. Nobody wants you to think about anything new or use your brain or make anything interesting because everything important has already been made. America is over; it's done being brilliant.Everything genius has already been built, like all the great works of art have already been produced.