It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?

I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.

I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said.

I hadn't bargained for this. I didn't think it would be like this - shabby clothes, worn-out shoes, circles under your eyes, your hair getting straight and lanky, the way people look at you. ... I didn't think it would be like this

very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same.

And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world.

It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?