The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.

The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.

And didn't it always go like that--body parts not lining up the way you wanted them to, all of it a little bit off, as if the world itself were an animated sequence of longing and envy and self-hatred and grandiosity and failure and success, a strange and endless cartoon loop that you couldn't stop watching, because, despite all you knew by now, it was still so interesting.

Twitter," said Manny, waving his hand. "You know what that is? Termites with microphones.

But it's never just been the journals that have made the difference, I don't think. It's also the way the students are with one another . . . the way they talk about books and authors and themselves. Not just their problems, but their passions too. The way they form a little society and discuss whatever matters to them. Books light the fire-whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.

This post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it.

But it had no doubt sprung from true emotion, for all that parents ever wanted, really, was for you to love their child the way they did.