It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts a… - John Updike

A company of believers is like a prison full of criminals; their intimacy and solidarity is based on what they can least justify about themselves.

College is a rip-off, the professors are teaching you stuff because they’re getting paid to do it, not because it does you any good. They don’t give a fuck about geography or whatever any more than you do. It’s all phony, they’re there because parents don’t want their kids around the house past a certain age and sending them to college makes them look good. ‘My little Johnny’s at Haavahd.’

It frightens him to think of her this way. It makes her seem, in terms of love, so vast.