The books I read and the movies I watched insisted that the world was a random and cruel place, that danger and death were everywhere, that adults could help you only so much, that there was another world — a secret one beneath the fantasy and fake safety of everyday life.
-- Narrator (empire)

Importance: Ellis claims that as a teen and young man that he learned about the reality of life not only through the books that he read but also through the horror movies that he watched. It appears as he faced the world that he encountered first in New York and then later after the terrorist attacks, that these horror movies did not prepare him for social media.

Not winning but disappointment, disillusionment and pain made joy, happiness, awareness and success both tangible and noticeably more intense, I realized at an early age.
-- Narrator (empire)

Importance: Ellis criticizes the way that modern parents ensure that...