A dispassionate white sun shone at the summit of the sky. I wanted to hone myself on it till I grew saintly and thin and essential as the blade of a knife.

I began to see why woman-haters could make such fools of women. Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chock full of power. They descended, and then they disappeared. You could never catch one.

I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print, the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig-tree.

The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

England offers new comforts. I could write a novel there.

The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life.