Dad's Theory of Arrogance--that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire and/or Loathing in everybody else's Broadway Play.

Life was a freight train barreling toward just one stop, our loved ones streaking past our windows in blurs of color and light. There was no holding on to any of it, and no slowing it down.

What you tend to find in the personal lives of brilliant men is devastation akin to a nuclear bomb going off.

But when you flee someone, no matter how far you roam, that person will follow you as doggedly as the stars.

...I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.

It’s got to be some kind of cult. Anyone offers you Kool-Aid or a hot shower, say no.

Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.