I didn't care about anything. And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk. You can do anything. Ask Kevin.

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

My own apathy is bone chilling.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

I feel that whoever isn't feeling settled in their career won't think about their marriage.

Wow, I wonder what it'd be like to have a difficult life?

While negativity is politically useful, it is also demoralizing unless it is accompanied - and to some extent overshadowed - by elevated and inspiring ideas about the American future.

I believe in ghosts and spirits, and I believe that they can possess you.

I'm in love with love, so I'm always taking risks! I think it's part of love, taking risks.

I find it hard myself to feel justified to sing in a very politically direct way about war or social conditions because I feel so ignorant of a lot of it.

Do you know how to tell who the enemy is, Cassie?

Raving mad is quite easy. You just chew up the scenery or something. It's quiet mad that's hard.

The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy.