A truly magnificent thing about the way the brain was coded, Sam thought, was that it could say "Excuse me" while meaning "Screw you." Unless they we… - Gabrielle Zevin

A truly magnificent thing about the way the brain was coded, Sam thought, was that it could say "Excuse me" while meaning "Screw you.

But people — the ordinary, the decent and basically honest — couldn't get through the day without that one indispensable bit of programming that allowed you to say one thing and mean, feel, even do, another.

How do you get over a failure? I think you mean a public failure. Because we all fail in private. I failed with you, for example, but no one posted an online review about it, unless you did. I fail with my wife and with my son. I fail in my work every day, but I keep turning over the problems until I'm not failing anymore. But public failures are different, it's true. So, what do I do? she asked. You go back to work. You take advantage of the quiet time that a failure allows you. You remind yourself that no one is paying any attention to you and it's a perfect time for you to sit down in front of your computer and make another game. You try again. You fail better.

There is no purity in art. The process of how you arrive at something doesn't matter at all.

but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.