"When you’re by yourself and you’re doing something that is physically quite demanding it might be almost more readily available to get to that space. People always call it out of body or you’re on autopilot, but none of those things are exactly true. You become the thing you’re making rather than the person making it. That’s a good place to be."

“We go through life being told by every story and bit of media that we can consume that for everybody there’s this corollary person or soulmate. And you’ll know each other and they’ll just get you and know what’s going on in your heart and mind. That terrible narrative that’s sold to us, prepackaged in every form, pretty much ruins every relationship—romantic, friendly and otherwise. The acknowledgement of the real rub of being conscious, to the degree that we are, is that no matter how much the company of others we seek, the underlying source of our discontent, and constantly looking for or describing different causes for it, is that ultimately you’re alone in your head. You’re the only thing that will ever think those thoughts. And there’s no amount of companionship, comradery or family that will ever penetrate that barrier. Your life and death, there’s a solitude to it.”