Beached under the spumy blooms, we lie Sea-sick and fever-dry.

Talking about my fears to others feeds it.

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.

To annihilate the world by annihilation of oneself is the deluded height of desperate egoism.

Perhaps, perhaps this would be the one to pull me out of my plunge.

... you looked around and saw everybody either married or busy and happy and thinking and being creative, and you felt scared, sick, lethargic, worst of all, not wanting to cope. You saw visions of yourself in a straightjacket, and a drain on the family, murdering your mother in actuality, killing the edifice of love and respect built up over the years in the hearts of other people.

Can a selfish egocentric jealous and unimaginative female write a damn thing worthwhile?