“People are complicated,” she said. “Didn’t they teach you that in biography school?”

“What they failed to teach you at school was that the whole business of being human just got messier and more complicated as you got older. You could tell the truth, be polite, take everyone's feelings into consideration and still have to deal with other people's shit. At nine or ninety.”

“People are complicated," she continued, "and the ones who aren't are boring." "Then maybe I'm boring."We looked at each other, and in a genuinely sad voice, she said, "Maybe you are.”

“Going to school on the Planet really is doing nothing. Youjust sit in the classes someone else tells you to sit in. Youlearn things you didn’t choose to learn from people youdidn’t choose to teach you. Then one day they tell you it’sover and you have to go out there and learn the world forreal.”

“When I tell people I went to library school, the most common reaction is either “You’re joking, right?” or “They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?”

“They tried to teach you to make lists in grade school, remember? Back when your day planner was the back of your hand. And if your assignments came off in the shower, well, then they didn’t get done. No direction, they said. No discipline. So they tried to get you to write it all down somewhere more permanent.”