“I should be sorry if I have only succeeded in entertaining them; I wished to make them better.”

“I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wished to make them better.”

“Is it better to pull someone, or push them to succeed? I have no idea, but will you be my slinky?”

“This is a bad story.”“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”“No, you should,” I say.“But—”“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.”

“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”

“To those humans in whom I have faith; I wish suffering, being forsaken, sickness, maltreatment, humiliation. I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the misery of the vanquished. I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures' . . . Remember, the passion for destruction is also a creative passion.”