I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

There's no sense forcing yourself if you don't feel like it. Tell you the truth, I've had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That's all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time.

Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren't you just in another, larger one?

Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.

Beyond the window, some kind of small, black thing shot across the sky. A bird, possibly. Or it might have been someone's soul being blown to the far side of the world.

You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this." "I believe you," she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind.

Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.