People need other people to feel things for them," she said. "It gets lonely to feel things all by yourself.

Because?' I prompt 'Because I'm sorry, but I can't help it, and I really need to kiss you right now.

I thought the Invalids were beasts; I thought they would rip me apart. But these people saved me, and gave me the softest place to sleep, and nursed me back to health, and haven't asked for anything in return. The animals are on the other side of the fence: monsters wearing uniforms. They speak softly, and tell lies, and smile as they're slitting your throat.

I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa

It's as though the words are trapped, buried under past fears, past lives, like fossils compressed under layers of dirt.

Perfection is a promise, and a reassurance that we are not wrong.

Amor deliria nervosa. The deadliest of all deadly things.