The Bodega at the End of the Internet

I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me—and, indeed, it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter—not exactly at

In your whole life nobody has ever abused you more than you have abused yourself.

“And so I realized. This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled: men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.”

"Then it must be my sixth sense. A gift God gave me — or maybe a curse.

All I know is that I've suffered because of it."

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who.