I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.

I have never in all my life considered you other people.

But indifference would ultimately commend itself as a devastating weapon.

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.

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.

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.

I first foreswore motherhood when I was about eight years old. ... [Children] were annoying. We were loud and sneaky and broke things. As an eight-year-old, maybe I was simply mortified by the prospect of being saddled with myself.