“How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?”
More from Don DeLillo
“The more I threw away, the more I found.”
“If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something…”
“Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave.…”
“I’m not reclusive at all. Just private.”