David Rakoff

There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking; pessimism is detail-oriented thinking.

The rigors of creativity - the self-doubt, the revising, the solitude - do require a kind of self-consumption. It comes at a cost; a cost that isn't for everyone.

Pessimists are born, true, but they also can be made.

Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive.

When I was 6, I saw a commercial that Jessica Simpson was in, and that was the first time I felt my little heart flutter.