Being neurotic seemed to be a kind of wild card, an all-purpose explanation.

There is a difference, of course, between real sentiment and the trash of shared experience.

I love the laconic. Clearly, I am not of their number.

Moral self-infatuation has its own corruptions, after all. With time, almost every other principle of the magazine acquired an ironic echo, a sort of cackling aftermath.

The whole magic of a plot requires that somebody be impeded from getting something over with.

The style of flirtation specific to classrooms was of service to the students all their lives.

I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.