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I had a sense of moral injury, of being mistaken for a worse person than I was, because I had not, in fact, materially participated in anyone's degradation. To the contrary, by stealing the magazine, I'd financially punished the bookstore for its bulk purchase of secondhand porn; I was, if anythi…

[...] In her disappointment with him, she idealized the truly wealthy, attributing improbable virtues to them. She'd cashed in her youth and her looks for life in a cramped three-bedroom house with a tin-pot progressive too good and kind to be divorced, and in her rage against her stupid-innocence …

[...] He put his hand on her upper thigh and left it there. Pretty much every thought she'd had in the last week had led back to one thing. She was experiencing stronger symptoms of being in love, a queasiness more persistent, a heart more racing, than she remembered having ad with Stephen. But the…

"There's this imperative to keep secrets, and the imperative to have them known. How do you know that you're a person, distinct from other people? By keeping certain things to yourself. You guard them inside you, because, if you don't, there's no distinction between inside and outside. Secrets are …

"They're all about being the special one, the chosen one. 'Only you can save the world from Evil.' That kind of thing. And never mind that specialness stops meaning anything when every kid is special. I remember watching those movies and thinking about all the unspecial characters in the chorus or …