I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for.

All narratives, even the confusing, are implicitly hopeful; they speak of a world that can be ordered, and thus understood.

When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.

While our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark

The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.

Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else.

I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison.