She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist.

To learn and think; to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.

I am but one more drop in the great sea of matter, defined, with the ability to realize my existence.

Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don’t want to die.

The door of the novel, like the door of the poem, also shuts. But not so fast, nor with such manic, unanswerable finality.

I inhabit the wax image of myself, a doll's body. Sickness begins here; I am a dartboard for witches.

I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.