See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks. I cannot contain it. I cannot contain my life.

There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road.

... stop trying to get me to write about 'decent courageous people' -- read the Ladies' Home Journal for those! ... I believe in going through and facing the worst, not hiding from it.

I want to be silverly beautiful.

I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

Some pale, hueless flicker of sensitivity is in me. God, must I lose it in cooking scrambled eggs for a man.

I am disabused of all faith, and see too clearly.