I broke out into a sweat and the worlds of Rilke, the poet, entered my brain – his notion that we are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.
I wish I could say that success turns people into plastic dolls, but the truth is that I don’t know any successful people.
Fun fact: The United Nations building in New York City is the only place in all of North America where smoking is still permitted indoors.
I was convinced that all of the people I’d ever gone to school with were headed for great things in life and I wasn’t. They were having more fun; finding more meaning in life.
TERMINAL WANDERLUST: A condition common to people of transient middle-class upbringings. Unable to feel rooted in any one environment, they move continually in the hopes of finding an idealized sense of community in the next location.
Jesus, Neal, watching you eat with a spork is like seeing Helen Keller at a ladies’ afternoon tea.
We threw chew toys to Misty, Mom’s golden retriever that she bought two years ago secondhand. Misty was supposed to be a seeing-eye dog, but she failed her exam because she’s too affectionate. It’s a flaw we don’t mind.
The less of a life, the more mail you need.
Probably tastes like a pocket calculator garnished with dried herpes juice flakes.
But when you’re caked in your own leavings, you don’t really mind being hit with brutally hard jets of water.
There’s something fun about Sharpies that’s really hard to articulate.
At meetings you have to explain what you’ve accomplished, so naturally you fluff up your work a bit, like pillows on a couch.
How strange that all you have to do sometimes to meet somebody is walk up to their house and ring a doorbell, and magically they appear as if from nowhere.
You know how sometimes after an afternoon nap you wake up with the shakes or anxiety? That’s what happened to me. I couldn’t remember who I was or where I was or what time of year it was or anything. All I knew was that I was. I felt so wide open, so vulnerable, like a great big field that’s just been harvested.
I’m not cheerful or domestic. I’m drab, crabby and friendless. I fill my days fighting a constant battle to keep my dignity. Loneliness is my curse- our species’ curse- it’s the gun that shoots the bullets that make us dance on a saloon floor and humiliate ourselves in front of strangers.
One psycho for every nine stable people in the company is a good ratio.
Are you a minimalist? Do you take pride in a reductive life? Minimalists are actually extreme hoarders: they hoard space, and they’re just as odd as those people with seven rooms filled with newspapers, dead cats and margarine tubs.
Ray, don’t get mad just because I say yes to life. I like to keep myself available to the universe, because it brings me wisdom. Maybe you don’t just want me to soar.
Wade tried to imagine Florida before the advent of man, but couldn’t. The landscape seemed too thoroughly colonized – the trailers, factory outlets, and cocktail shacks of the world below. He decided that if human beings took over the moon, they’d probably just turn it into Florida.
My brain is built of paths and slides and ladders and lasers and i have invited all of you to enter its pavilion. my brain, as you enter, will smell of tangerines and brand-new running shoes.
Today was the first day when I could really tell that summer was over. The cold air sparkled and the maple leaves were rotting, putting forth their lovely reek, like dead pancakes.