Like many people, I had come to New York City with this idea that I was somehow extraordinary. The important part wasn't "extraordinary," it was "somehow" -- I wasn't quite sure what kind of renown it was, exactly, that I was destined for. I just knew that I was really good at something, or that I could be, if I could just figure out what. Free-floating ambition is toxic because it means that anyone who has accomplished anything in any realm of human endeavor is the enemy because she might be your competition. So you hate everyone a little bit, but behind this wall of hatred you still feel vulnerable. And you are vulnerable, but not because of the competition. You're vulnerable because if anyone points you in anything that seems like a direction, that's where you'll go.

-- Emily Gould, And the Heart Says Whatever

The book as a whole left me wanting something that it didn't quite deliver, but there were a few parts that particularly resonated. I think it's one of the saddest books I've ever read.