There wasn’t a single cell in our bodies that was the same as the day we were born, and yet we were still held responsible for everything all of our formers selves had ever done.

That’s an applicable life lesson, my boy,′ he’d said. ‘Nobody is really paying attention to you. Most people don’t really get this. They think they must count more to other people than other people count to them. They can’t believe the disregard could truly be mutual.

The way to assure morality on Earth was not to behave as though there was a God, even if there wasn’t – it was to behave as though there was no God, even if there was. We must act as though ours is all the judgment and forgiveness that is ever forthcoming, if we want any hope of getting anything right.

There’s an intimacy in listening to somebody’s lies, I’ve always thought – you learn more about someone from the things they wish were true than from the things that actually are.

Do you ever feel that way, though?” “What way?” “Like you could go back to some time that’s passed? Like you catch yourself thinking, why don’t I go there anymore, and why don’t I see those people and attend those parties, and then you remember it’s because that life is gone? And that you can’t?

The trick to not killing yourself was to convince yourself, every single day, that your departure from the world would have a devastating effect on absolutely everyone around you, despite consistent evidence to the contrary.

This was the elasticity and permanence of parental love; everything vile about your children was to some degree something vile about yourself, and disowning your child for their failings could only compound your own.

The ability to communicate scorn should be the true test of fluency in any language.

I yawned, which is my cover for everything.

I think the only way to properly face doom is to be on time.