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

Insomniacs know better than anyone how it would be to haunt a house.

I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.

She will remain sane and she will live as she was meant to live, richly and deeply, among others of her kind, in full possession and command of her gifts.

I don't know if I can face this. You know. The party and the ceremony, and then the hour after that, and the hour after that." "You don't have to go to the party. You don't have to go to the ceremony. You don't have to do anything at all." "But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another. I'm so sick.