Breaking free, or not, is usually determined by whether you want to get somewhere slowly or nowhere fast.

You did what your heart told you to do,' Brain complimented. 'It is what leaders, not followers, do.

We all want to be stars. The idea of being revered and envied must be encoded somewhere deep in our DNA. So must the desire to revere and envy others we imagine to be better, more accepted, and more popular than we are. The only problem is that the most necessary qualities required to be a celebrity -- self-absorption, egomania, shamelessness -- are the least attractive in a friend.

I always find that I'm at my best,' Eric said leadingly, 'when I'm at my worst.

If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed. Apart from a few starry-eyed poets or monks living on a mountaintop somewhere, however, we all have expectations. We not only have them, we need them. They fuel our dreams, our hopes, and our lives like some super-caffeinated energy drink.

The success or failure of any relationship depends not just on how we feel about each other, but on how we make each other feel about ourselves.

It was like death by a thousand paper cuts.