“Being alive hurts. I have found it best not to rush for the aspirin bottle. - A Severed Wasp”

“As best I could make out, having never heard the term until I arrived in California, being a WASP meant being mossbacked, lockjawed, rigid, humorless, cold, charmless, insipid, less than penetratingly bright, but otherwise---and inexplicably---to be envied.”

“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”

“I am bad at asking for help. When you ask a human being for help, there is a chance they will say later, Remember when you asked for help? Can I have five dollars? That goes for medicine, too. I don't like asking help from pills in a bottle. I don't want to be woken up at night by a tab of aspirin asking to borrow five dollars.”

“There are many types of pain. The only one that aspirin won't help is a hurting heart. That's why there is alcohol.”

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”