Where else would she feel more comfortable than in this subterranean realm where people wrote down what they couldn't say, where they gave voice to their most shameful longings and knowledge?

I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are.

I'm constantly having doubts and moments of depression and then excitement and then back into the slough of despond.

Normality wasn't normal. It couldn't be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself.

The worst thing about religion was religious people.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

All of a sudden America wasn't about hamburgers and hot rods anymore. It was about the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. It was about something that had happened for two minutes four hundred years ago, instead of everything that had happened since. Instead of everything that was happening now!