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A system that existed only because everyone believed they were among people like themselves.
Alex saw sorrow in the daughter’s future but that was probably just projection.
This game of convincing people how much things were worth—in that way, she and Simon were not so different.
Younger men had to make everything mean something, had to turn every choice and preference into a referendum on their personality.
People just wanted to hear their own voices, your response a comma punctuating their monologue.
Misfortune hadn’t touched Alex: it had only come close enough that she felt the cold air of a different outcome hurtling past.
They would leave here Monday night, imagining they had gotten close to something, had some rarefied experience. The truth was that the world they were imagining would never include them.
The appearance of calm demanded an endless campaign of violent intervention.
When you were quiet long enough, let the silence really settle, people usually felt too uncomfortable to gather their thoughts. To form those thoughts into a question, like, for example, why was Alex still here?
