But as I have noticed on more than one occaision, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.

They like to tell us that it is important to speak the truth, but it has been my experience that real happiness lies in having people tell you what you want to believe, usually not the same thing at all, and if you have to stub your toe on the truth later, so be it.

Hope is for people who can't see the Truth.

I am unlovable...I have tried to involve myself in other people, in relationships, and even - in my sillier moments - in love. But it doesn't work. Something in me is broken or missing and sooner or later the other person catches me Acting or one of Those Nights comes along.

She had searched for just the right guy; sensitive and gentle and willing to wait. Quite a long search, of course. She was looking for some imaginary man who cared more about having someone to talk to and see movies with than he needed to have sex, because she was just Not Ready for That. Did I say imaginary? Well yes. Human men are not like that.

Quirky, funny, happy-go-lucky dead inside Dexter. No longer Dexter with the knife, Dexter the Avenger. Not until next time.

The key to a happy life is to have accomplishments to be proud of and purpose to look forward to, and at the moment I had both. How wonderful it was to be me.

In that tremendous flash of freedom, on my way to do The Thing for the first time, sanctioned by Almighty Harry, I receded, faded back into the scenery of my own dark self, whole the other me crouched and growled. I would do It at last, do what I had been created to do. And I did.

It was such an unexpected and genuine smile that if I only had a soul I'm sure I would have felt quite guilty.

There are still very few laws against thinking, although I am sure they're working hard on that in Washington.

Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner.

Money to me had always been merely something the sheep used to show each other how wonderful they were.

I had killed our careful relationship by driving my tongue through its heart and pushing it off a cliff.

I know family comes first, but shouldn't that mean after breakfast?

The mind picks some very bad times to take a walk doesn't it?

Perhaps it was only that I did not feel any crazier than I had ever felt. I did not notice any missing gray tissue, I did not seem to be thinking any slower or more strangely, and so far I’d had no conversations with invisible buddies that I was aware of. Except in my sleep, of course-and did that really count? Weren’t we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor’s children?

Why bother inflicting enormous pain on yourself when sooner or later Life would certainly get around to doing it for you?

And as we should all know by now, anytime you predict failure you have an excellent chance of being right.

When faced with people who have very limited conversational skills and no apparent desire to cultivate any it's always easier to simply go along.

At some point, even the greatest misery begins to fade. Life, or what passes for life, plods on in it's own unending weary footsteps, and somehow we plod along with it, if we stay lucky.

And as always seems to happen when I have reached the point where I am ready to take decisive action, everything began to happen at once.

I think that's nice, and if I could have feelings at all I would have them for Deb.

A man can take only so much. Even a phony man like me.

Since I am not actually a real human being, my emotional responses are generally limited to what I have learned to fake.

For the first time I could remember, I felt weak, woozy and stupid— like a human-being. Like a very small and helpless human-being.

I had become a perfect fake human, saying the stupid and pointless things that humans say to each other all day long.

It was clear to me that it wouldn't matter what I did - they would never truly appreciate me or learn what I had to offer. They were far beyond fickle - they were insensible, like kittens,predatory little things, distracted by the first bit of string or shiny bauble that rolled across the floor, and nothing I could ever say or do could possibly make any kind of dent in their willful ignorance.

It really is better to be lucky than to be good.

Of course it was a terrible thing, and the world would be a much better place without someone in it who could do that, but did that mean we had to miss lunch?

Was insanity really easier to accept than unconsciousness?

In my life long study of human beings, I have found that no matter how hard they try, they have found no way yet to prevent the arrival of Monday morning. And they do try, of course, but Monday always comes, and all the drones have to scuttle back to their dreary workday lives of meaningless toin and suffering.

Feeling - what authentic human fun!

Rectory always sounded to me like a place you would find a proctologist.

It took me a moment. I blinked, and suddenly it swam into focus and I had to frown very hard to keep myself from giggling out loud like the schoolgirl Deb had accused me of being. Because he had arranged the arms and legs in letters, and the letters spelled out a single small word: BOO. The three torsos were carefully arranged below the BOO in a quarter-circle, making a cute little Halloween smile. What a scamp.

In its own way the kiss had been an act of murder.

What, in all very seriousness, the hell was going on?

Really now: If you can't get me my newspaper on time, how can you expect me to refrain from killing people?

It was almost enough to make me feel emotion.

Whatever made me the way I am left me hollow, empty inside, unable to feel. It doesn't seem like a big deal.

It's always me, isn't it? I'm not really a very nice person, but for some reason it's always me that they come to with their problems.

A man who discovers his pants are on fire tends to have very little time to worry about somebody else's box of matches

Doakes had a first name! It was Albert - had anyone ever really called him that? Unthinkable. I had assumed his name was Sergeant.

How bad could things be if my hair was neat?

This was just no fun. I wanted my brain back.

The mission sat in a converted store front on the corner of a medium-busy street. There was a small crowd gathered in front - no real surprise, since they gave out food and clothing, all all you had to do was spend a few moments of your life listening to the good reverend explain why you were going to Hell. It seemed like a pretty good bargain, even to me, but I wasn't hungry.

Life teaches us that human thought almost never walks hand in hand with logic, and it is usually counterproductive to raise the point.

Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.

Always marveling at how New Age pseudo-philosophy had taken over the Internet.

And I was having too much fun to stop now.

Me, feeling. What a concept.

I mean, really: what kind of person could possibly dislike me?

I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw.

No blood at all. I could hear that phrase repeat itself in my head, louder each time. No sticky, hot, messy, awful blood. No splatter. NO BLOOD AT ALL. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Or was he saying, "Hi! Wanna play?"And I did. Of course I did.

I was good at being charming, one of my very few vanities.