“Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport.”

“It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for.”

“I've always been a poor sport and a sore loser...any other behavior might encourage a repeat performance”

“Simon would disapprove, in the way that people who lacked life experience always disapproved of others having adventures they had so far missed out on. ”

“I’d always been afraid of sick people, and so had my mother. It wasn’t that we feared catching their brain aneurysm or accidentally ripping out their IV. I think it was their fortitude that frightened us. Sick people reminded us not of what we had, but of what we lacked. Everything we said sounded petty and insignificant; our complaints paled in the face of theirs, and without our complaints, there was nothing to say.”

“How do I please you," he whispered, embarrassed by his own deplorable lack of knowledge and skill.”