I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try and call on it, just like a light bulb cracking off when you throw the switch.

The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.

I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for.

Animals were both the lives I took care of and the lives who took care of me.

When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.

Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else.

Anxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential ingredients in suffering from pain, as opposed to feeling pain pure and simple.