I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get rid of dinner. Of course, by then, throwing up was the only way I knew how to deal with fear. That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.

Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live. The great question, at least for me, was: How do I decide I want to live?

My brain sometimes departs from the agreed-upon reality, and my private reality is a very lonely place. But in the end, I'm not sure I wish I'd never gone there.

When you are mad, mad like this, you don't know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you.

Bear in mind, people with eating disorders tend to be both competitive and intelligent. We are incredibly perfectionistic. We often excel in school,athletics,artistic pursuits. We also tend to quit without warning. Refuse to go to school,drop out,quit jobs,leave lovers,move,lose all our money. We get sick of being impressive. Rather,we tire of having to seem impressive. As a rule,most of us never really believed we were any good in the first place.

I do have faith. I don't have faith that a God exists, nor do I have faith that one does not; I have absolute faith that I do not know, cannot know, am only human, am an infinitesimal creature packed onto a cramped planet crowded with seven billion bodies, and as many yearning hearts, and as many questioning minds.

When you deal with nonfiction you deal with human characters.