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

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

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.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

Many, if not most, countries blithely expect their citizens to have carte blanche access to the U.S., "land of immigrants," as a veritable human right, but put up all manner of barriers to Americans who want to emigrate in the opposite direction.

I am in flight from my story every day, and it dogs me like a faithful stray.

Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed.