The internet is necessarily public. It can be filtered-public or censored-public, but it necessarily has to be open and available.

I don't think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost.

Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well.

... I didn't know whether to feel angry at her for making me part of her suicide or just to feel angry at myself for letting her go.

We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.

We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors . . . But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters.

In retrospect Hank I don't know why I spent four years writing this book when I could have just made a hit sing-a-ma-jig album.