Never assume. Never make plans. Keep doing the press-ups and deep knee bends: you'll need all your strength and flexibility when your life suddenly implodes. Maybe it won't — some people do lead enchanted lives — but odds are that it will. Some time.

the touch of evil poisons by the idea of it. Reject the idea, and you've rejected the evil

Your attitude is perhaps a little unnecessarily rigorous," suggested Jack.

I like to assume that since I drive a car and maintain a respectable credit rating and rarely murder anyone and bury them in the back garden unless they really deserve it, that the fact that I hear voices wont unduly disturb anyone.

All you did was sit there, he said. Why are you so tired? I sat very diligently, she said.

I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of [it] at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself.

...but with the hours I sometimes kept at the coffeehouse I had to have learned to take naps during the day or die, and I had learned to take naps. Up until five months ago "something or other or die" had always seemed like a plain choice in favor of the something or other.