"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and in spite of True Romance magazines we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely at least, not all the time but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."

"I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion."

"You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.
But I know the truth: I know from the nights of coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. Its hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build up inside of you like a stone.
Take it from me, if you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do —the only thing— is run."