Doing all the little tricky things it takes to grow up, step by step, into an anxious and unsettling world.

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.

The first time I saw a fingerbowl was at the home of my benefactress. [...] The water had a few cherry blossoms in it, and I thought it must be some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner soup and ate every bit of it, including the crisp little blossoms.

Worse even than your maddening song, your silence.

But life is long. And it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion.

I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.