I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of anything. Whatever you have been, you are mine now. I can hold you.

If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.

But I still feel I waste a lot of time leaning on my elbow and thinking to myself, 'alright sucker, now what?'

The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock.

Love was generous precisely because it could never be immortal.

But what I thought, and what I still think, and always will, is that she saw me. Nobody else has ever seen me — me, Jenny Gluckstein — like that. Not my parents, not Julian, not even Meena. Love is one thing — recognition is something else.