“To be willing to do new things you don't think you'll like requires you to prefer the unknown. Not just tolerate it, but to prefer it.”

“The guy's name was Colt.Colt, said Thebes. Like a baby, male horse?I guess, said the guy, or a gun.Well, which do you prefer? she said.What do you mean? he asked.Like, how do you prefer to think of yourself? As a baby, male horse?No, he said, he didn't really like to think of himself that way.Well, then, as a gun? she said.No, not really, he said. He preferred basically not to think of himself at all.”

“I don't like to think of myself as a 'virgin'. I prefer to think of myself as 'sexually incomplete'. You know. Like I haven't finished the course yet.”

“Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.”

“You, yesterday, did the usual things, just as any day, You don't know if it's worth remembering. You would prefer to remember, there lying in the half-darkness of the bedroom, not what has happened already but what is going to happen. In your half-darkness your eyes would prefer to look ahead, not behind, and they do not know how to foresee the past.”

“You don't need to like me to let me fuck you but since I like you, I'd prefer it that way.”