Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.

The humming of my parents' voices from behind my bedroom wall, which throughout my childhood had filled me with a sense of security, had now become a source of anxiety and panic.

We couldn't imagine the emptiness of a creature who put a razor to her wrists and opened her veins, the emptiness and the calm.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

No matter how long your've been at it, you always start from scratch.

The time has to be right and the heart willing.

I saw the movie, he said. I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so - he leaned toward us - their tits bleed.