It may be that art, like drugs, is a way of dulling or controlling pain.

 It may be that art, like drugs, is a way of dulling or controlling pain. Words are only symbols, noises or marks on paper, and turning the messy, ugly stuff of life into language renders it inert and manageable for the author, even as it intensifies it for the reader. It’s a nerdy, sensitive kid’s way of turning suffering into something safely abstract, an object of contemplation.

TIM KREIDER