“Reading always calmed me down: filling my head with other - made up - people's problems and conflicts made my own seem less terrible, less real.”

“Gradually, I was getting worn down. My sense of direction had evaporated by our fourth day. When south became the opposite of east, I bought a compass, but going around with a compass only made the city seem less and less real. The buildings began to look like backdrops in a photography studio, the people walking in the streets like cardboard cutouts.”

“How do you feel?” she asked, trying to fluff his pillow. “Other than terrible, I mean.”He moved his head slightly to the side. It seemed to be a sickly interpretation of a shrug.“Of course you’re feeling terrible,” she clarified, “but is there any change? More terrible? Less terrible?”He made no response.“The same amount of terrible?”

“It is always easier to take the words of a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Marx, or a Confucius as constituting Holy Writ. This involves less reading, less study, less thought, less conflict, and less independent searching, but it also means less growth toward maturity.”

“Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real.”

“some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.”