I do not find illness an eminence, and I do not understand how people can use it to draw attention to themselves since the attention they draw is nearly always reluctantly given and unpleasantly carried out.

But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist-or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.

A boy becomes a man when a man is needed

I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody.

He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.

You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.