VerumInsights...

“Why was I holding on to something that would never be mine? But isn't that what people do?”

“But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough go drinking.”

“And though the coldness I have always felt leaves me, the numbness doesn't and probably never will. this relationship will probably lead to nothing... this didn't change anything. I imagine her smelling clean, like

“And it struck me then, that I liked Sean because he looked, well, slutty. A boy who had been around. A boy who couldn't remember if he was Catholic or not.”

“Disintegration---I'm taking it in stride.”

“My pain is constant and sharp...this confession has meant nothing”

“You learn to move on without the people you love.”

“No one will ever know anyone. We just have to deal with each other. You're not ever gonna know me.”

“I don't want to care. If I care about things, it'll just be worse, it'll just be another thing to worry about. It's less painful if I don't care.”

“Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?"

[...]

"'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" I stop finish my J&B in one swallow.

"What does the other part of him think?" Hamlin asks tentatively.

"What her head would look like on a stick”

“But... what about us? What about the past?" she asks blankly.

"The past isn't real. it's just a dream," I say. "Don't mention the past.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason why we shouldn't get married."

Because trying to fuck you is like trying to french-kiss a very.... small and... lively gerbil? With braces?”

“But you don't need anything. You have everything,' I tell him.

Rip looks at me. 'No I don't.'

'What?'

'No I don't.'

There's a pause and then I ask, 'Oh, shit, Rip, What don't you have?'

'I don't have anything to loose.”

“I think a lot of snowflakes are alike...and I think a lot of people are alike too.”

“I feel I'm moving toward as well as away from something, and anything is possible.”

“Life is like a typographical error: we're constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.”

“A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key.”

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip. ”

“What else is there to do in college except drink beer or slit one's wrists?”

“Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire - meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead.”

“The Smiths are singing and someone says "Turn that gay angst music off.”

“And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.”

“And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention”

“There are so many things Blair doesn’t get about me, so many things she ultimately overlooked, and things that she would never know, and there would always be a distance between us because there were too many shadows everywhere. Had she ever made promises to a faithless reflection in the mirror? Had she ever cried because she hated someone so much? Had she ever craved betrayal to the point where she pushed the crudest fantasies into reality, coming up with sequences that she and nobody else could read, moving the game as you play it? Could she locate the moment she went dead inside? Does she remember the year it took to become that way? The fades, the dissolves, the rewritten scenes, all the things you wipe away—I now want to explain all these things to her but I know I never will, the most important one being: I never liked anyone and I’m afraid of people.”

“I've forgotten who I had lunch with earlier, and even more important, where.”

“The seeds of love have taken hold and if we won't burn together, I'll burn alone.”

“I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.”

“The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.”

“She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.”