44 Quotes by Adam Haslett

You don't want to think about it, but there's an ethical limit to what anyone should have to endure. You can't just negate that with sentimentality. With the idea of some indomitable spirit. That's a fairy tale. It's what people say about other people, to avoid the wretchedness. It's just cruelty by other means. Requiring a person to stay alive. For you.

Kind of gay? I wanted to say. Do you have any notion how many homosexuals sweated their ass off on the dance floor to make this soaring bit of derivative trash possible? How many died of AIDS, OD'd, or went broke on the way to that girl from Texas cutting a deal...

Sound systems are what turn cars into escape vehicles, even if you've got nowhere to go.

How narrowly we all avoid having never been.

It struck me then, for the first time, how unethical anxiety is, how it voids the reality of other people by conscripting them as palliatives for your own fear.

...I did what most kids do when their world feels destroyed. I tried to care less about what remained...It was untrue, of course.

...I did what most kids do when their world feels destroyed. I tried to care less about what remained...This was untrue, of course.

Imagine me gone, imagine it’s just the two of you. What do you do?

He's in that larva stage, the damp, pained shedding of the child's body. This is what boarding school is for. To store them away during years like this, so they can suffer without the embarrassment of their parents watching.