The Statue of Liberty's gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars.

It was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty.

In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.

Scars crossed her welded wrists.

and she had succeeded, on the second try, in hurling herself out of the world

Three times a day Petrovich showed up at the nurse's office for his injections, always using the hypodermic needle himself like the most craven of junkies, though after shooting up he would play the concert piano in the auditorium with astounding artistry, as though insulin were the elixir of genius.

Don't waste your time on life.