“I can barely forgive myself for the time when I negged Billy from my improv troupe onstage. He said, “I have a gift for you,” and my first instinct was to say, “No you don’t.” The scene died right then and there. See what happens when I try to nurture something? I know it seems dramatic to relate destroying an improv scene to possibly destroying a child’s life, but improv and child rearing are not so different. Both are jobs that people volunteer for and complain about endlessly, and they bore everyone around them as they talk about the process.”
― I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids
― I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids
“That was my favorite line: I'll drink less when things get better.”
― Drinking: A Love Story
― Drinking: A Love Story
“It’s hard for me to read Weirdo and a lot of those magazines; it’s always depressing for me to read these guys writing about how they’re so depressed and they can’t get laid. After a while, it really gets on my nerves. There’s something about it that makes me think it’s just this club of really fucked-up dudes [laughs] — Weirdo especially — and after a while, I just didn’t want to read it any more. I was not interested in that viewpoint; it just made me feel bad and made me feel that these were people I didn’t ever want to know.”
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“I really just want someone to come over and brush my hair or let me cry in their lap while they pet my head and tell me I'll be okay." And I cried harder because I felt so ashamed to want that from a friend—from someone who was not a romantic partner or a parent—because I didn't have either right now but I still wanted it. We section off physical comfort and intimacy so heavily. We reserve it for partners only, and platonic friends can only chit-chat and that's it. How can you tell people to be okay with being single while also telling them they can only get the basic human needs of physical touch from not being single?”
― How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't
― How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't
“He was a man of very few words, and as it was impossible to talk, one had to keep silent. It’s hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding.”
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Joshua’s 2025 Year in Books
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