The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home

Like any reasonable human, I do not like harming innocent people, but like any reasonable human, I do not consider the wealthy to be innocent people.

There is power in being unremembered, in being overlooked. You should remember that power. People who aren't seen can see and hear all.

In my rage, I can be anywhere, do anything. Vengeance is my path, and I must never once veer from it.

The American Southwest is nature's surrealist masterpiece.

We all don't get happy lives. Maybe a happy life doesn't exist, at least not as some complete, discrete entity. We get what we get and we sort through how we feel about it moment by moment.

Ford. Our cars are built strong. Our cars are built out of bones. Weird metal bones that we found buried in a meteor. Ford: Drive Weird Bones.

Maybe this is a bad time to bring this up, but you need to pay your credit card bill. It’s maxed out, and you’ve missed the past two due dates. And the thing is—and this is going to sound selfish, because it is—but your Netflix account got suspended, and I was only halfway through season three of Cheers. The laugh track is a bit off-putting, but it’s still a good show. I really love the plot twist that Norm’s nagging wife, Vera, turns out to have been dead for ten years, and Norm has kept her memory alive by continuing a fictional narrative about her. Sam and Diane knew that Vera wasn’t really alive and that Norm was delusional, but in episode seven, when they go to check in on Norm, they find him cuddled up next to her decayed corpse and reading her Lord Byron’s “The First Kiss of Love,” and he’s crying. The stench is unbearable, but less unbearable than the brutal truth of the moment. My point is, I didn’t get to finish watching Cheers because you’re behind on your credit card payments. I need you to deal with that.

His love had felt so genuine, but poison sometimes tastes sweet.

Here is what the sea smells like. It is more texture than scent, because the sea is primarily made of two substances that have no smell of their own: water and salt. Salt has no smell, but makes the air sting, and so all of the other smells of the sea are layered upon the pang of salt. Water has no smell but instead a comfort. We feel moisture as life and so the smells of the ocean are layered upon the contentment of the water. Salt is treble and water is bass. I don't know how I know this is true, but I know it is true. The sea smells like old wood and wet leaves. Like cold mud and warm stone. Like every creature who has ever lived in it, a churning graveyard and nursery. Like winds from the inland carrying the hot circulation of life and winds from the ocean carrying the distant froth of waves against ships and islands. Like gray, only more so. Like blue, only less so.

Not you, Azara, she wrote me back.' ... 'She said she misses me too and wants to see me again.' .. 'And I was scared to write again because her letter was so smart, so easy to read. I read it over and over, and it was perfect, but mine was, it was not good, and she cannot love me because I am a monster. Because I am not smart enough to read her books.

Not everyone gets to know everything about everybody.

Men are a formidable force worthy of our full attention, which is why nature must remind us that it is an immortal god, capable of ending any of us in a moment.

I had known all of this since I left my father's body at our burned estate, but I had stashed it away. I had poured this knowledge into a bottle, and let it age and collect dust deep in the cellar of my conscience. And now the vintage was uncorked, its bouquet opening up, bitter and sharp.