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.

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

How lucky we are, when we're spared what we think we want!

Teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic but even Jesus was probably paid better.

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

You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself.