They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.

Jimmy found himself wishing to make a dent in Crake, get a reaction; it was one of his weaknesses, to care what other people thought of him.

And yet it disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional.

But in the end, back she comes. There's no use resisting. She goes to him for amnesia, for oblivion. She renders herself up, is blotted out; enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries.

Menopause. A pause while you reconsider men.

Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.

I didn't much like it, this grudge-holding against the past.