Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.

Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tooting.

Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Maybe it's much the same.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.