“I've always preferred crazy to stupid. Stupid can break your heart.”

“My typical morning involves some time on the treadmill, but obviously I skip that a lot. Mostly, I wake up, check my email, then get to work on the various interviews and questions and phone calls ...”

“I think some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.”

“My dad believed in scaring us as we were growing up. Scaring the boys who wanted to date us more.”

“I busted my chin open trying to be Evel Knievel on my bike. When it happened, you could see straight through to the bone, I thought my dad was going to pass out. It left a scar that I still have now.”

“Reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.”

“Seek a slower, simpler life.”

“There is no such thing as escape after all, only an exchange of one set of difficulties for another. It wasn't Mark or the farm or marriage I was trying to shake loose from but my own imperfect sel...”

“Talking won't change it. But sometimes it was what she wanted most, to tell someone; often, though, she just wanted to escape those horrid feelings, to escape herself, so there was no pain, no fear...”

“Weakness or strength: there you are, strength. You do not know where you are going, nor why you are going; enter anywhere, reply to anything. They will no more kill you than if you were a corpse. I...”

“All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.”

“The invisible things are the value system.”

“self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.”

“When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.”