My Year of Rest and Relaxation

by Ottessa Moshfegh

“Studied grace is not grace,” I once tried to explain. “Charm is not a hairstyle. You either have it or you don’t. The more you try to be fashionable, the tackier you’ll look.”

I don’t know what it was about Reva. I couldn’t get rid of her. She worshipped me, but she also hated me.

You should know that I’m someone who appreciates the subtleties of human experience.

Education is directly proportional to anxiety, as you’ve probably learned, having gone to Columbia.

Being pretty only kept me trapped in a world that valued looks above all else.

“A walk around the block could do wonders for your mood,”

“Soon we’ll be old and ugly. Life is short, you know?

Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.