All of us have theories about the world and about ourselves. We will go to great lengths to prove ourselves right because it keeps the world in our head coherent and understandable.

You will miss her sometimes. Bear in mind she's trying to kill you. Bear in mind you have a life to live.

I'm a driven perfectionist, very self-critical.

My parents say that even as a very, very little kid, the way that I acted was dramatically different from other little kids.

Somewhere in the back of my brain there exists this certainty: The body is no more than a costume, and can be changed at will. That the changing of bodies, like costumes, would make me into a different character, a character who might, finally, be alright.

We were at another funeral party. I wasn’t sure who had died this time, but it was a suicide, and upsetting because it was completely out of season. No on killed themselves in summertime. It was rude.

The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive.