It spoke of something deep in human beings, how hard she had to pinch herself when she started thinking of it all as a metaphor.

This did not feel like real life, exactly, but nowadays what did?

take it for granted that at some point in the course of human events you will see a reason to put increasing amounts of your balls online.

The cursor blinked where her mind was.

They kept raising their hands excitedly to high-five, for they had discovered something even better than being soulmates: that they were exactly, and happily, and hopelessly, the same amount of online.

No amount of sugar-eating or being scared would help.

Previously these communities were imposed on us, along with their mental weather. Now we chose them—or believed that we did. A person might join a site to look at pictures of her nephew and five years later believe in a flat earth.

The doors of bland suburban houses now looked possible, outlined, pulsing—for behind any one of them could be hidden a bright and private glory.

She put one true word after another and put the words in the portal. All at once they were not true, not as true as she could have made them.