The fact that my clothing has been visually available to other people I do not find upsetting. The body is another matter. It is mine; I have found it useful; but it is an avatar.

Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.

Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy.... I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself, but maybe what disturbed me was that I was capable of it. I feared this was a knack one could get the hang of rather readily, and it was therefore now lurking in my house waiting for me to pick it up like a winter flu.

Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches.

History is made of empires, and the United States was by far and away the greatest, richest, and fairest empire that had every dominated the earth. Inevitably, it would fall. Empires always did. But we were lucky, you said. We got to participate in the most fascinating social experiment ever attempted.

I am in flight from my story every day, and it dogs me like a faithful stray.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.