Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights.

She repeats things until they are true, or until she can't tell whether they are true or not. She has become an expert at confusing what is with what was with what should be with what could be.

I love sushi, I love fried chicken, I love steak. But there is a limit to my love.

We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes. Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life. It can be messy, and painful, and almost impossibly difficult. But it is not something we give. It is what we get in exchange for having to die.

The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless.

While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.

Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.