Time reveals in some the bowling ball-head gene, and in others the cinderblock-head gene.
Popular culture has been slowly preparing us for an unbearable future.
Thirty years after the loss of their son they still look for him in restaurants—the man at the corner table, laughing with his beautiful wife, waiting for someone to join them.
He hangs on to his beloved hat long after forgetting he once wore it with irony.
The book’s celebrated “brutal honesty,” refreshing at first, is ultimately outweighed by a hipster/junky air of smug self-congratulation I’ve encountered in some AA people, reveling in their transgressive pasts while simultaneously gloating over their current virtue.
Pity, that is to say, empathy tinged with ridicule.
Public servants selflessly dedicated to destroying as many lives as possible.
He said, with exaggerated sadness, as if embarrassed for me, your work is very earnest.
Stepping out after a dreadful night, you feel the air on your skin and it all rolls over you again: the majesty of life on earth.
Assholishness somehow protected him from sadness.
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A few times a month I take the empty gun from the drawer and hold it to my temple. If someone asked why, I’d probably come up with something about “clearing the mind.” The truth is, I just like the way it feels.
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Last week for the first time I took a bullet from the cigar box, loaded it into the chamber and gave it a spin before holding the gun to my head. I can’t describe the surge of adrenaline as I visualized pulling the trigger.
And then, gradually, fear becomes your way of life.
Sitting in this chair, trying to not piss anyone off.
I think I can safely say, with great pleasure, your best days are well behind you.
Affliction and disease present the greatest advertising opportunity in the history of mankind.
Today is normally a non-drinking day, but yesterday was a holiday.
Things you thought were important turned out not to be important.
Things you thought were not important turned out to be important.
When he stepped out to get the paper the sun was shining, and he realized for the first time in months that he wasn’t scared. Maybe this was how it was for people. Maybe this was what he could hope for.
He said that the better you got to know someone, the less you liked them. Animals were the opposite. Of course, you could never really know anyone. Each human being inhabited a vast chasm that could never be filled. The best you could manage was a few shovelfuls of dirt, ten miles away and ten miles down.
