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

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

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.

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

Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wished them to be.

Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them.

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