This thing about looking for someone less different... It only really worked, he realized, if you were convinced that being you wasn't so bad in the first place.

Unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money.

He would read up on parenting, if he thought it would help, but his errors always seemed too basic for the manuals. "Always tell your kids they have siblings..." He couldn't imagine any child-raising guru taking the trouble to write that down. Maybe there was a gap in the market.

Like all books that have that kind of momentum, it starts from word of mouth.

I'm human. That's how humans spend their time, doing shitty things.

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.

What harm has he ever done to you?' 'You know what harm he's done me. He offended me with his terrible taste.