And when I say that is certainly true, that our marriage is over. I know what else she will say: "Then you must save it." And even though I know it's hopeless- there's absolutely nothing left to save-I'm afraid if I tell her that, she'll still persuade me to try.

Libraries are the pride of the city.

And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?

I always thought it mattered, to know what is the worst possible thing that can happen to you, to know how you can avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable.

I have a writer's memory, which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was.

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.