It goes in streaks. But some things never go out of fashion.' Hunger artists, fat folks, giants, and dog acts come and go but real freaks never lose their appeal.

My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves.

I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy. Each of these innocents on the street is engulfed by a terror of their own ordinariness. They would do anything to be unique.

Training of female athletes is so new that the limits of female possibility are still unknown.

Beside Mama, in my own folding chair, with my feet sticking out in front of me, I thought about my own innards. Just a few months before I'd had no idea whether my reproductive equipment worked. There was no evidence. But that week I had become a full-fledged bleeder and was still absorbed by this first change in myself that I had ever noticed. The click and buzz of my synapses kept making the same connection. If you can change, you can also end. Death had always been a theory to me. Now I knew. The terror hurt good and I nursed it and played it like a loose tooth.

This idea that males are physically aggressive and females are not has distinct drawbacks for both sexes.

I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.