Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.

Reading is socially accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you’re not there anymore. It’s better than heroin. More effective and cheaper and legal.

Having a great dad probably permitted me to pal around with guys in a way that some women don't.

I do have a really good memory. I mean, like, I can remember all the phone numbers of everybody on the street I grew up on.

I'm doomed to act like myself, even when it's inconvenient!

People who didn't live pre-Internet can't grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. I stopped in the middle of the SAT to memorize a poem, because I thought, This is a great work of art and I'll never see it again.

Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an instant how we're formed, in what detail the force that infuses every petal might specifically run through us, wishing only to lure us into our full potential.