He was someone who could at the same time be held in the highest esteem and lowest contempt.

Your unabashed self-confidence leads me to question your intelligence.

That year’s mingled scent of burnt coffee, jet fuel, lavatory disinfectant. Dismal at the time, now you’d give anything to have it back.

Thoughts: semi-organized gibberish.

Memory will have to suffice.

The few minutes each evening this time of year when the back windows flood with wild monkey light and birdcalls echo through the trees. Something in you lifts and you feel the heaviness of what you’ve become.

Whatever; if you say so. I grew up poor and afraid. I believe you more than I believe myself.

Months of fear and isolation had worn him into component parts.

Alone in his hotel room he wrote:
I am strong. I am unafraid.
He took a sip of his drink and added:
I am over it.
He sat back and looked at what he had written.
None of it was true.
But for the first time in years, he could imagine it.

Alprazolam
Clonazepam
Diazepam
Lorazepam

He had a hard time listening to people whose voices sounded as if they knew they were likable.

Isn’t it about time you drop that veneer of confident expertise and admit you don’t know anything? You can barely keep your underwear clean, for godsake.

You’ve won, we have no fight left, it’s your world, which is nothing, less than nothing, welcome to it.

God always has a plan, and that plan is for random stuff to happen.

In the harmonious spaces and bright clear sunlight of this elegant house, you feel an acute awareness of how coarse and awkward you’ve become. If only the light could pass right through you.