Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that they exist. And his own adult future isn't real to him, either. Makes it that much easier to throw away.

The fact that my clothing has been visually available to other people I do not find upsetting. The body is another matter. It is mine; I have found it useful; but it is an avatar.

Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison. "Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with undying adoration, whether or not you deserve it, and we can't take our lives as seriously as yours. We snuffle up the crumbs from your table on the rare occasions you notice we're alive.

A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship, it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.