I thought you were supposed to be the champion of your people,' I said. I live because I need to do that. For anyone who is left.' Don't you see? No one will be left. Protect them now or there will be no one to protect!' This is a battle that goes on and on. It never ends. You're too young to understand. No! You're too much of a coward to fight.' I was sick of lies and secrets and of battles so old we had to erase who we were to fight back. And still we lost. Still we were tied to posts.

Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.

I think growing up is difficult and it's a process that I'm always interested in, with kids and adults, they are often on two different universes.

She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.

Do what you want, do what you will, do what you have to, do what you think you cannot.

Everything was red, the air, the sun, whatever I looked at. Except for him. I fell in love with someone who was human. I watched him walk through the hills and come back in the evening when his work was through. I saw things no woman would see: that he knew how to cry, that he was alone. I cast myself at him, like a fool, but he didn't see me. And then one day he noticed I was beautiful and he wanted me. He broke me off and took me with him, in his hands, and I didn't care that I was dying until I actually was.

What did you see?' he asked then. Nothing,' I told him. 'Because nothing is what you wanted me to see, though the man on the table might disagree.