Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena.

How could I have thought that I needed to cure myself in order to fit into the 'real' world? I didn't need curing, and the world didn't, either; the only thing that did need curing was my understanding of my place in it. Without that understanding - without a sense of belonging to the real world - it was impossible to thrive in an imagined one.

She wondered: How could people respond to these images if images didn't secretly enjoy the same status as real things? Not that images were so powerful, but that the world was so weak. It could be read, certainly, in its weakness, as on days when the sun baked fallen apples in orchards and the valley smelled like cider, and cold nights when Jordan had driven Chadds Ford for dinner and the tires of her Chevrolet had crunched on the gravel driveway; but the world was fungible only as images. Nothing got inside the head without becoming pictures.

I admire your capacity for admiring.

When I was younger, the main struggle was to be a 'good writer.' Now I more or less take my writing abilities for granted, although this doesn't mean I always write well.

He had a happy canine way of seeking approval without seeming insecure.

The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.