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.

All narratives, even the confusing, are implicitly hopeful; they speak of a world that can be ordered, and thus understood.

I treated despair in terms of hierarchy: if there was a more important pain in the world, it meant my own was negated. I thought I simply had to accept the fact that I was ugly, and that to feel despair about it was simply wrong.

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

While our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark

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

Partly I was honing my self-consciousness into a torture device, sharp and efficient enough to last me the rest of my life.