So many of the things I've wanted are the things I've been taught to fear.

I don’t have too many books, I have too little shelving.

None of the wives mention the security guards by the door, who will probably tackle us to the ground if we try to leave without our husbands.

For males twenty-five is the fatal age. For women it's twenty. We are all dropping like flies.

I lost everyone I loved," I tell him. I wait for him to look at me, and then I add, "The day I met you.

Maybe what frightens us about the edge isn't our fear of morality, but the thoughts it leads us to have.

He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us.