SMALL TALK

As I was saying…why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?”

Because Graham had come to believe that people were only happy when they could feel one emotion at a time. That was the reason that things that had provoked such pure joy in childhood—fresh chocolate-chip cookies, a sweatshirt warm from the dryer, a perfect sand castle—did not offer the same joy in adulthood. You were too busy having all these other tiresome emotions about income tax and drunken texts and varicose veins and how much money was in the parking meter.

Do you know how when people are really hungry they will be driven to eat the inedible? Grass and soil and the like? That also happens with love. If you want love badly enough, you will start gobbling harmful substitutes like attention and possessions.

I wake up the next morning and dress in all black, secret spy style. My mother eyes me and asks if I’m depressed, and I say, “No, I’m just cool.

People architect new lives all the time. I know this because I never see them again once they find these new lives.