Amber

“Here finally Kant perceives the true rift between them: Julian doesn't know the difference between embarrassment and shame. How shame soaks, stains, leaves a skidmark on everything and when it has nothing to stick to, spreads until it does. Embarrassment is contained by incidents, gets funny and small over time; shame runs gangrene through the entire past, makes the future impossible. You can't own it or laugh it off, only try to bail it out in sloshing bucketfuls, drenching yourself in the process. Embarrassment is an event, shame a condition, one that Julian has somehow either mastered or never experienced, which explains why he's so easygoing, and why, to him, the world is so tractable, why all seems fixable with talk. What's inside Julian is smooth and fragrant, his desires desirable, and so his words are gift wrap, sometimes sloppy but always appreciated. Whereas if Kant ever relaxes his vigilance, allows his own sick and malign requirements to escape through the candor of voice or touch, they could never be recontained.”
― Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection

“Even looking past the internet-borne tendency for writers of your generation to ass-cover with tedious disclaimers, the real point, we think, is to foreclose scrutiny, to get ahead of rejection by naming your sins before any reader has a chance to. But this perverse apologizing only feels like you're cutting and chewing our meat for us, and we reject you (literally) all the harder.”
― Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection

“It’s hard to be knocked down when you’re on all fours.”
― Miranda July, All Fours

“My friends are always obliging me with ephemera like this- screenshots of sexts, emails to their mothers- because I'm forever wanting to know what it feels like to be other people. What are we all doing? What the hell was going on here on Earth? Of course none of these artifacts really amounted to anything; it was like trying to grab smoke by its handle. What handle?”
― Miranda July, All Fours