When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue. Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn’t, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another.

I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.

There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.

I don't know how long I kept at it... I felt reasonably safe, streched out on the floor, and lay quite still. It didn't seem to be summer any more

I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old.

I am too pure for you or anyone.

It is awful to want to go away and to want to go nowhere.