“She had only two modes of operation: complete control or complete insanity.”
“My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can t be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a superior position that she wouldn t need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don t, nothing will work out the way they want.”
“Don t be a creation of circumstances, create your dreams, take full control of your destiny.”
“The real problem is I m greedy. I want complete, utter, unceasing bliss. But I don t want to fall into it either. If happiness were money I wouldn t want to win the lottery. I want to accomplish it, urn it as John Houseman would say. I want it to be an achievement because I want to be in control of my life. I don t want things to happen to me, I want them to happen because of me. Power I want. I want to feel the way I do when I stretch a new canvas and I want to feel that way all the time. the blank canvas fills me with the power of imminent creation. I m its god an it always bends to my will and when I m done I know, inside, that it s markedly better than what almost all of my similarly-engaged others can achieve. That s happiness.”
“Challenge who you can be, don t let fate control your future. Fate can come to rule your life if you don t decide for yourselves exactly what you want. It fills in the bits like a mischievous mistress.”
“Love. It seemed impossible that she could love him, but she was so deep in him there was really nowhere to go but further in. So this is what love was. Uncontrollable. Consuming. But so irresistible you wanted to be consumed.”