#self-loathing

"I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me."

"When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves."

"When you loathe yourself, a true friend will respect your honesty. And if you’ve been fortunate in life, he will probably share your opinion."

"How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?"

"The trick. . .is to find the balance between the bright colors of humor and the serious issues of identity, self-loathing, and the possibility for intimacy and love when it seems no longer possible or, sadder yet, no longer necessary."

"It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."