I like you, but not too much. I don’t want to like anybody too much.

One night she hid the pink cotton scarf from her raincoat in the pillowcase when the nurse came around to lock up her drawers and closets for the night. In the dark she had made a loop and tried to pull it tight around her throat. But always just as the air stopped coming and she felt the rushing grow louder in her ears, her hands would slacken and let go, and she would lie there panting for breath, cursing the dumb instinct in her body that fought to go on living

Jealousy can open the blood, it can make black roses.

... 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.

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

If I was going to fall, I would hang on to my small comforts, at least, for as long as I possibly could.

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.