It was strange to see someone you have only known alone begin interacting with other people, for that somebody known to you disappears and is replaced by a different, more complex, person. You watch him revolve in this new company, revealing new facets, and there is nothing you can do but hope you like these other sides as much as you like the side that seemed whole when it faced only you.

I suppose most people would think that it was wonderful, that the world is so varied, that there is something for everyone, and I don't know why I felt so closed and bitter and threatened by things I did not like.

One man’s nonsense is another man’s sense.

I think that’s what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by.

I think therapy is a rather misguided notion of capitalist societies whereby the self-indulgent examination of one's life supersedes the actual living of said life.

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 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.