“To lose the approbation of my dog is a thing too horrible to contemplate.”

“A good roommate may be the single most important thing to have when one is away at school.”

“I have always tried to be obedient regarding important matters like not being scalded to death by burning oil, but when public opinion takes a route far from one's inner conviction, one cannot value disobedience too highly.”

“My brother, he says. My brother is dead."And again he asks me to kill him. One more time before he falls to his knees and sobs. And i get it. I do. Because i have a brother too.”

“Don't sound so grumpy. Next thing you know you'll be whinning and giving me puppy dog eyes.”

“Some things you can fix, and some things you can’t. And I just think it is a shame to walk away from the things you can.”

“I wondered if my life was going to be one immersion after another, a great march of shallow, unpopular popular culture infatuations that don't really last and don't really mean anything. Sometimes I even think maybe my deepest obsessions are just random manifestations of my loneliness or isolation. Maybe I infuse ordinary experience with a kind of sacred aura to mitigate the spiritual vapidity of my life....no, it is beautiful to be enraptured. To be enthralled by something, anything. And it isn't random. It speaks to you for a reason. If you wanted to, you could look at it that way, and you might find you aren't wasting your life. You are discovering things about yourself and the world, even if it is just what you find beautiful, right now, this second.”