"The world can make it feel like everyone’s out to get you. But so often, people have just… got you."

"I do my public role-play, I make my service to society, and then at the end of each evening, I open up the throttle and revel in the sweet solitude as the lights of the township recede into insignificance."

"Suddenly, my heart ached agonizingly for a person that wasn’t him. Suddenly, the person I unbearably missed was myself."

"My projections for how people will react to being approached or challenged are often much worse than the reactions actually are."

"There must be a German word for the feeling when you know you are about to expend a large amount of energy on something that is futile."

"I still don’t know how she wriggled her way in; the space was much too small. Yet, with a circus performer’s know-how, she folded herself up into a shape that fit. I imagine she was suffused with triumph and satisfaction. I imagine that satisfaction lasted about five seconds, at which point she noticed the nails, their sharp sides pointed directly at her. That’s when she started screaming."

"I did not see that the game was over. I did not know the clock was running. I never lose, but I do run out of time. It turns out this was basketball and not baseball."

"Suddenly you are aware of every single thing that happens. The two signals before she gets into a tantrum. When a quiet yes means a no."

"Adoption is similar to so many aspects of American life where we ask “the market” to do what we will not do out of decency as a nation — effectively match children who need homes to waiting parents."

"You don’t have to have an opinion. You don’t need to make a judgment. I know that doesn’t sound like liberation, because we live and work in an opinion-based economy. But it is. Not having an opinion means not having an obligation. And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches."

"People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation."

"Bashing the right, especially in the age of Trumpism, was easy and boring, the conversational equivalent of playing 'Chopsticks' on the piano. Inspecting your own house for hypocrisy was a far meatier assignment."

Mom’s eyes say, “You’re going to learn to play this and win the heart of the world with your beautiful music.” Dad’s eyes say, “You’re going to play this or die.”

"My brother and I aren’t just in different tax brackets—we’re in different universes."

"I am 24 and on a date with a nice man and he asks me what my greatest fear is, which I guess is the kind of thing people ask on first dates. I think, and realize I know my answer: I’m scared that the children I do not yet have will die while I am still alive."

"Well you can punch a mirror all you want, but don’t be surprised when you’re the only one bleeding."

"Here is how I came to go to Iceland: I cried for an afternoon and a night without quite understanding why, and then my wife convinced me I should do a thing I had dreamed of, and then she bought me a plane ticket."

"Perfectionism can’t survive unless it is fed with the oxygen of indulgence and paranoia and irrationality."

"Saying 'we will be okay' was saying the impossible. We are not okay without him. But I had to say it, for him."

"Freedom, a gift wasted on the free."