Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.

Disaster is a natural part of my evolution toward tragedy and dissolution.

I'm not really into comfort books. There are too many of those as it is. Just sort of narcotic books, like my grandmother used to read. They have value like Paxil has value, but there's plenty of them in the world already. There's a shortage of confronting, stimulating, exciting books.

I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map. A real adventure.' A spinx. A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined.

The bad news is we don't have any control. The good news is we can't make any mistakes.

Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't.

Only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit.