Trust

Every single one of our acts is ruled by the laws of economy. When we first wake up in the morning we trade rest for profit. When we go to bed at night we give up potentially profitable hours to renew our strength. And throughout our day we engage in countless transactions. Each time we find a way to minimize our effort and increase our gain we are

She knew, then, that this solemn form of joy, so pure because it had no content, so reliable because it relied on nobody else, was the state for which she would henceforth strive.

That she never shed this persona made her wonder, later in life, if that was not who she had truly been all along or if, rather, over the years, her spirit had shaped itself after the mask.

Wherever her family went, she became the node that connected all wandering Americans worth knowing.

what I thought, at the time, they all had in common: they all believed, without any sort of doubt, that they deserved to be heard, that their words ought to be heard, that the narratives of their faultless lives must be heard.

Nothing more private than pain. It can only involve one.

God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.

that self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good,

Kitsch can also be in the eye: “The sunset looks like a painting!” Because artifice is now the ultimate standard, the original (sunset) has to be turned into a fake (painting), so that the latter may provide the measure of the former’s beauty.