...she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was like and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside of herself.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.

Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.

Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured

Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.