"I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stumped by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, 'Hi.' They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word." - Augusten Burroughs
"But lately I've had to come to grips with scope and figure.
How my problems stack up in a world two steps from ruin,
or maybe it's Rapture.
Either way, I realize that my shit's about as small as it could be,
but that makes me feel worse
for even feelin' this bad in the first place." - Kevin Devine
Grim and unyielding he stood, unmoved by scruple.
Wicked intention arouses a sort of courage,
stubborn, deranged, begetter of endless sorrow.
He nerved himself to be his daughter's butcher...
... to gag her pretty mouth,
to keep unseemly cries from polluting her family.
She let her wedding dress drop to the ground;
she shot a piteous glance at each of her killers,
eager to speak, like a picture from happier times...
-Aeschylus, "Sacrifice of Iphigenia"
I'd been in the throes of looking for an apartment after a little difficulty with a landlord who woke up one morning convinced he was Charles de Gaulle. I was so stunned by this announcement that before I could think twice I'd already told him how in my humble estimation he did not at all resemble an airport, though the thought of a 757 landing on him was not at all disagreeable. I was promptly evicted.
. . .
As it turned out Chuckie de Gaulle burnt the place to the ground a week later. Told the police a 757 had crashed into it.
-Mark Z. Danielewski, "House of Leaves"
FULLBLEED
