In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

...some people coddle their own afflictions the way others spoil small pedigreed dogs with cans of pate.

I seem to remember even from when I was very young that when you loved someone you also hated them for making you love them, since loving someone is so incredibly humiliating.

Though it may be more romantic to picture the bereaved as gaunt, I imagine you can grieve as efficiently with chocolates as with tap water.

Size is relative. If everyone is fat, no-one is fat

It's an apathy so absolute that it's like a hole you might fall in.

You were ambitious - for your life, what it was like when you woke up in the morning, and not for some attainment. Like most people who did not answer a particular calling from an early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would fill up your day but not your heart. I liked that about you. I liked it enormously.