Failing to grapple with complexity actually turns out to be a pretty bad life strategy.

Poetry is just so emo." he said. "Oh, the pain. The pain. It always rains. In my soul.

Headline?" he asked. "'Swing Set Needs Home,'" I said. "'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'" he said. "'Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'" I said.

I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what.

Nerd life is just so much better than regular life.

The whole thing was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic

Is that what relationships become? A reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in. It was more than that. I know it was more than that.