I Wanted All Of Her And Resented

What He'd Never Understood About Men In His Position, In All The Books He'd Read And Movies He'd Seen About Them, Was Clearer To Him Now: You Couldn't Keep Expecting Wholehearted Love Without, At Some Point, Requiting It. There Was No Credit To Be Earned For Simply Being Good.

I Find It A Huge Strain To Be Responsible For My Tastes And Be Known And Defined By Them.

Love Is About Bottomless Empathy, Born Out Of The Heart’s Revelation That Another Person Is Every Bit As Real As You Are. And This Is Why Love, As I Understand It, Is Always Specific. Trying To Love All Of Humanity May Be A Worthy Endeavor, But, In A Funny Way, It Keeps The Focus On The Self, On The Self’s Own Moral Or Spiritual Well-being. Whereas, To Love A Specific Person, And To Identify With His Or Her Struggles And Joys As If They Were Your Own, You Have To Surrender Some Of Your Self.

Fiction, I Believed, Was The Transmutation Of Experiential Dross Into Linguistic Gold. Fiction Meant Taking Up Whatever The World Had Abandoned By The Road And Making Something Beautiful Out Of It.

Today's Baudelaires Are Hip-hop Artists.