You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.

What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy's other half.

She thinks how much more space a being occupies in life than it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in gestures and movements, in breathing. Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest.

I love movies, I love television, I love narratives of all kinds.

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.

You grow weary of being treated as the enemy simply because you are not young anymore; because you dress unexceptionally.

Any other vexations to report?" he asks. "I love the word 'vexations.'" "It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that." "Just the usual ones," she says. "How was the weekend?" "Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?