We're on speaking terms today. I say, Maybe we should hang out with the boys, and you shake your head. I want to spend time with you, you say. If we're still good, next week maybe. That's the most we can hope for. Nothing thrown, nothing said that we might remember for years. You watch me while you put a brush through your hair. Each strand that breaks is as long as my arm. You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either. It's not a great place to be but what can I tell you?

I love the kookiness of our speech. Speech is like wonderful magic and poetry in itself. I've always had to crib a lot from what I've heard.

Poor Oscar. Without even realizing it he'd fallen into one of those Let's Be Friends Vortexes, the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love's version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.

Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.

It's just a matter of willpower. The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.

If you, like, consciously think about being cool, you're not cool. If you consciously think about being, like, different or original, you ain't different or original.

I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.