Finally, I asked how you got a boy to like you back. She said, 'Just be yourself,' as though I had any idea who that might be.

She seems sort of lost.' I thought, Lost how? How am I lost? Suddenly I felt lost.

I feel in some ways I've had a difficult life. And it makes me the kind of writer I am, in what I value, what I respect, what I hold dear.

But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here--and you haven't even died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol on the ladies' room door.

He tells me that the best man I will ever find will be attracted to other women. I hear this as another fact I am too old not to know. More proof of how unprepared I am to love anyone.

He tried to smile, but it was just a shape his mouth made.

Sometimes you’re loved because of your weaknesses. What you can’t do is sometimes more compelling than what you can.