I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.

The lawn was white with doctors

I am afraid. I am not solid, but hollow. I feel behind my eyes a numb, paralyzed cavern, a pit of hell, a mimicking nothingness.

We know a thing by its opposite corollary; hot by having experienced cold; good by having decided what is bad; love by hate.

I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.

I tried to speak in a cool, calm way, but the zombie rose up in my throat and choked me off.

The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.