Sometimes when there's been an accident and reality is too sudden and strange to comprehend, the surreal will take over

Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm?

It was like waking from a nightmare to a worse nightmare.

their reality was far more interesting than any idealized version could possibly be

Beauty alters the grain of reality,