“Serotonin, the "feel-good" brain chemical that is boosted by Prozac, depends on magnesium for its production and function.”

“Magnesium deficiency can produce symptoms of anxiety or depression, including muscle weakness, fatigue, eye twitches, insomnia, anorexia, apathy, apprehension, poor memory, confusion, anger, nervousness, and rapid pulse.”

“What does it mean that we find victims who suffer with dignity more attractive than victims who don’t? What does it mean that we don’t mind it when perpetrators, torn apart by their own experiences, weep openly—but we are rendered uncomfortable when victims do the same? I don’t mean that each and every person has this experience: many of us feel like weeping when we see the carnage created by a suicide bombing and the grieving and shocked faces of the survivors. I mean instead that in all I have read, I detect a strong cultural bias toward aversion when confronted with victims who act as if they have suffered.[…]“Fragile, powerless, and helpless victims make us uncomfortable, evoke complicated responses in us, and make it hard for us to empathize with the humiliation they underwent.[…]one claim I make in different ways in the book—and very explicitly in chapter 3—is that to be really credible, a victim has to appear to have mastered his or her suffering.”

“The heart of [J.G.] Ballard's vision [is] the object at odds with its function and abandoned by its time.”

“I am no good alone. I need bonds, vows real if unspoken, shared laughter, and people who depend on me as I depend on them.”

“It's all a lie. I said to myself. Romance. This notion that some guy is going to swoop and fall madly in love with me and change my life and make everything perfect. It's one big, horrible lie and I bought it. Hook, line, and a ten thousand-pound sinker. Or I guess I should say it's a lie for a girl like me. For Skye, that's another story. The first time Dakota kissed me, down at the hot tub, I remember thinking, this is too good to be true. But if something feels too good to be true, maybe it's not true. Maybe the truth is that Skye deserves him. She'll always be the winner. And I, pathetically, will always be me.”

“It's my experience that you first feel the impulse to write in your chest. It's like falling in love, only more so. It feels like something criminal. It feels like unspeakably wild sex. So, think: When you feel the overpowering need to go out and find some unspeakably wild sex, do you rush to tell your mom about it?”