My dad was a man of infinite varieties of bitterness, rage, distaste. In my lifelong struggle to avoid becoming him, I’d developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all.

“Ahh! Iconoclast. Disdains the easy, symbolic patriotism.”

We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can’t recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn’t

People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.

Ironic people always dissolve when confronted with earnestness, it’s their kryptonite.

And it’s so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine.

He’s let me see his shortcomings, and he hates me for knowing them.

And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls.

In truth, I wanted her to read my mind so I didn’t have to stoop to the womanly art of articulation. I was sometimes as guilty of playing the figure-me-out game as Amy was. I’ve left that bit of information out too.