“you're instantly in a bind once you arrive here on earth, of need, self-will, a body and a separate personality, even before teh crippling self-consciousness kicks in, even before the seventh grade ... you're fucked at cell division ... it's all downhill from there. After that, it's all survival, and trying to keep yourself either entertained or convinced that the things you're obsessed with are of any importance at all in the big scheme.”

“It's sad to fall asleep. It separates people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone.”

“Adolescence is best enjoyed without self-consciousness, but self-consciousness, unfortunately, is its leading symptom. Even when something important happens to you, even when your heart's getting crushed or exalted, even when you're absorbed in building the foundations of a personality, there comes these moments when you're aware that what's happening is not the real story. Unless you actually die, the real story is still ahead of you. This alone, this cruel mixture of consciousness and irrelevance, this built-in hollowness, is enough to account for how pissed off you are. You're miserable and ashamed if you don't believe your adolescent troubles matter, but you're stupid if you do.”

“If you're going to maintain any kind of self-respect, you're going to have to keep secrets from yourself.”

“They say that your powers of memory are at their peak when you're 26, and it's all downhill after that.”

“It's like anything. It's like you're an actor, or a painter, or a writer. You've always got to entertain yourself first before you can even consider entertaining other people. Because if it doesn't excite you, it's never gonna excite anybody.”