You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.

And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?

I’ll still be missing you as much as ever. I’l still smile at the memory of you. I’ll still be - Okay, I’ll say it again - loving you, but I won’t abandon myseld for you. I cannot be faithful to you without being faithful to myself.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.

In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.

When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go.

You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw . . . nothing. Isn't that sad? And stupid?