If sinners where so unhappy, why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why. Without my wounds, who was I?

What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.

You must find a boy your own age. Someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered. Someone whose fingers are a poem.

And I realized as I walked through the neighborhood how each house could contain a completely different reality. In a single block, there could be fifty seperate worlds. Nobody ever really knew what was going on just next door.

Once you get below the floor of our personal identities, we're all connected. Perhaps that's why we can move into others' lives.

I emitted some civetlike female stink, a distinct perfume of sexual wanting, that he had followed to find me here in the dark.

Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.