Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out.

I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me. I want to steal something.

How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.

...how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.

If he wants to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice.

Show me a character totally without anxieties and I will show you a boring book.

It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you're telling it, to yourself or to someone else.