It wouldn't kill you to get me an iced coffee." "No, but not getting killed doing something is not a very compelling reason to do it.

I’m not a sociopath or a freak (although I don’t suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just don’t enjoy being with people. People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient. For some reason I think you should only say something if it’s interesting or absolutely has to be said.

I knew my mother was right, but that didn't change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind.

The first night Stephen and I slept together, he whispered numbers into my ear: long, high numbers -- distances between planets, seconds in a life. He spoke as if they were poetry, and they became poetry. Later, when he fell asleep, I leaned over him and watched, trying to picture a mathematician's dreams. I concluded that Stephen must dream in abstract, cool designs like Mondrian paintings.

I hate stand-up comics; I think funny is something you are, not something you desperately try to be in front of a roomful of obnoxious people.

It seemed that everyone else could mate, could fit their parts together in pleasant and productive ways, but that some almost indistinguishable difference in my anatomy and psyche set me slightly, yet irrevocably, apart.

I felt this awful obligation to be charming or at least have something to say, and the pressure of having to be charming (or merely verbal) incapacitates me.