“I don't know why I felt so closed and bitter and threatened by the things I did not like.”

“I often feel like I want to think something but I can't find the language that coincides with the thoughts, so it remains felt, not thought. Sometimes I feel like I'm thinking in Swedish without knowing Swedish.”

“I don't think I could ever work in such a blatantly hierarchical corporate setting. I know that everyone in this world is not equal, but I can't bear environments that make this truth so obvious.”

“I knew my mother was right, but that didn't change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind.”

“Are you okay?' she asked me.Of course,' I said. 'Why wouldn't I be okay?'There are lots of reasons why you might not be okay.'There are lots of reasons why anyone might not be okay,' I said.”

“Most people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. I suppose this is why people always want other people to say "I love you." I think just the opposite—that thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them.”

“What if she was meant to be, or could have been, someone important in my life? I think that's what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by. How do you know...I felt that by walking away I was abandoning [them], that I spent my entire life, day after day, abandoning people.”