300 Arguments

It can be worth forgoing marriage for sex, and it can be worth forgoing sex for marriage. It can be worth forgoing parenthood for work, and it can be worth forgoing work for parenthood. Every case is orthogonal to all the others. That’s the entire problem.

There are two kinds of people: those who can’t perform the act when they’re sad and those who perform it only to escape sadness. I have a theory that the second kind of person lives longer.

Slowly, slowly, I accumulate sentences. I have no idea what I’m doing until suddenly it reveals itself, almost done.

I annotated my friend’s book manuscript with scribbles on every page. She annotated mine with a single note: This needs to be better. She trusted that I would know what to do, and I did.

Respect the one-hit wonder not for his one hit but for all the days he must have suffered afterward, trying for another.

Is it a failure of my imagination that I’ve never been able to summon any genuine feeling about a sports team?

I don’t love writing; I love having a problem I believe I might someday write my way out of.

You aren’t the same person after a good night’s sleep as you are after a sleepless night. But which person is you?

I like writing that is unsummarizable, a kernel that cannot be condensed, that must be uttered exactly as it is.