But now the world, he thought, had taken them. He knew that this could suddenly happen. One day you just woke up, and there was somewhere that you needed to be.

It seemed that everywhere you went, people quickly adapted to the way they had to live, and called it Life.

I always thought it was the saddest and most devastating ending. How you could have these enormous dreams that never get met. How without knowing it you could just make yourself smaller over time. I don't want that to happen to me.

And I also know that pain can seem like an endless ribbon. You pull it and you pull it. You keep gathering it toward you, and as it collects, you really can't believe that there's something else at the end of it. Something that isn't just more pain. But there's always something else at the end; something at least a little different. You never know what that thing will be, but it's there.

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

Being an adult child was an awkward, inevitable position. You went about your business in the world: tooling around, giving orders, being taken seriously, but there were still these two people lurking somewhere who in a split second could reduce you to nothing. In their presence, you were a big-headed baby again, crawling instead of walking.

Everybody has a theme. You talk to somebody awhile, and you realize they have one particular thing that rules them. The best you can do is a variation on the theme, but that's about it.