But still — a night in society! That has to be worth something.

How ambitious can you actually be if your path is trimmed by a John Deere and lined with string lights well before you even arrive?

I opted instead to resign myself to destiny, since it relinquished me from the gravity that comes with pretending to have a say in how life goes.

The remainder were as ordinary as ill-fitting tiles in a mosaic (that is to say, they were not ordinary by any measure).

You convinced yourself that you’re no longer simply in New York, you are New York.

The commute levels everyone, and for a moment makes you feel as if you are no different from the compromised and forgettable faces filling the car.

I say I knew of the caste system, yet I only knew this in the manner that those who have never felt hunger “know” that people can and do starve in places out of sight. There is no emotion attached to the knowledge, nothing visceral, nothing heeded any other way than intellectually.

In rare instances, however, the exceptional can mistake themselves for ordinary. This usually happens when a viable aspiration is stymied by discouragement, or when ambition exists so briefly that it ends up extinguishing itself. When potential is unrealized, only tragedy remains.

Everyone wants a miracle but all they get is life.