Into the Wild

"He wasn't antisocial — he always had friends, and everybody liked him — but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn't seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely."

Into the Wild, pg. 107
By Jon Krakauer
Published 1996

 

Girl, Interrupted

"It was my misfortune - or salvation - to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality... This clarity made me able to behave normally, which posed some interesting questions. Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act? If some people didn't see these things, what was the matter with them? Were they blind or something? These questions had me unsettled."

Girl, Interrupted, p. 41-42

By Susanna Kaysen

Published 1993

The God Delusion

"To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-down anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird volume that religious zealots hold up to as the inerrant source of our morals and rules for living."

The God Delusion, p. 237
By Richard Dawkins
Published 2006

Dry

"I've only been here a few hours and I already feel like a mess. At my core, I am a vain and shallow person, and being in LA always brings this buried truth closer to the surface. I fear that my soul wants not tranquility and wisdom, but long, blond hair extensions that hang loosely down over my eyebrows and a ripped, liposuctioned stomach. I want pec implants and a chemical peel. I want Gucci loafers. I want Rupert Everett to be in love with me, a Range Rover and a new, small cell phone in my pocket."

Dry, p. 221
By Augusten Burroughs
Published 2003

C.O.G.

Photo: Here

"I was a smart-ass, born and raised. This had been my curse and would continue to be so. Instructing me in religious faith was like trying to teach a goat to cook a fine meal - it just wasn't going to happen. I was too greedy and inattentive, and the ultimate reward meant nothing to me."

C.O.G. from Naked, p. 199
By David Sedaris
Published 1997

Dinah, the Christmas Whore

"Patently, joyfully normal, Lisa was the embodiment of everything I found depressing. Nothing set her apart from the thousands of other girls I saw each day, but this fact did not disturb her in the least. In her desire to be typical, my sister had succeeded with flying colors."

Dinah, the Christmas Whore from Naked, p. 110
By David Sedaris
Published 1997

Blue Like Jazz

"When I was in love I hardly thought of myself; I thought of her and how beautiful she looked and whether or not she was cold and how I could make her laugh. It was wonderful because I forgot my own problems. I owned her problems instead, and her problems seemed romantic and beautiful."

Blue Like Jazz, p. 151
By Donald Miller
Published 2003

Running with Scissors

"More than anything I wanted to break free. But free from what? That was the problem. Because I didn't know what I wanted to break free from, I was stuck."

Running with Scissors, p. 258
By Augusten Burroughs
Published 2002

The Year of Magical Thinking

Photo: LIFE

"As a child I thought a great deal about meaninglessness, which seemed at the time the most prominent negative feature on the horizon... No eye was on the sparrow. No one was watching me. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end."

The Year of Magical Thinking, pp. 189-90
By Joan Didion
Published 2006

The Texts of Chuang-tzu

"The sage is full of anxiety and indecision in undertaking anything, and so he is always successful."

The Texts of Chuang-tzu, Book XXVI
By Chuang-tzu
Published 4th century BC

Lucky

"...I live in a world where the two truths coexist; where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand."

Lucky, pg. 243
By Alice Sebold
Published 1999