The body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.

my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and waiting for it to pass. And it would pass -- but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people.

The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.

Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?