We think we should have to work in order to feel. We want to have our cake resist us; and then we want to eat it, too.

Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me.

You pass the old L.A. County jail, which is surprisingly beautiful. It's got a handsome stone facade and stately columns. The new L.A. County jail - called The Twin Towers - isn't beautiful at all; it's a stucco panopticon the color of sick flesh.

Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt.

I like thinking of the writer as a kind of curator; the collection as curiosity cabinet - in a non-demeaning, non-objectifying sense - but an array, a set of offerings.

I'm happy not knowing. Most of the time (except when I'm a neurotic mess about uncertainty) I feel glad that the horizon is a mystery.

Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.