A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction.

And yet, within her anxiety, secured there like a gemstone, she carries the cool and curious power of occasionally being able to see the world vividly. Clarity bursts upon her a spray of little stars. She understands this, and thinks of it as one of the tricks of consciousness; there is something almost luxurious about it.. The narrative maze opens and permits her to pass through. She may be crowded out of her own life - she knows this for a fact and has always know it - but she possesses, as a compensatory gift, the startling ability to draft alternative versions.

So this is where the years of maturity deliver us - to this needy, selfish, unwieldy wish to be somebody else's first and primal other.

Anyone's childhood can be an act of disablement if rehearsed and replayed and squinted at in a certain light. . .

The recounting of a life is a cheat...even our own stories are obscenely distorted.

It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day.

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.