“It's like I tell people at my stand-up shows: by making me a bitch, you have given me my freedom, the freedom to say and do things I couldn't do if I was "a nice girl" with some sort of stupid, goody-two-shoes image to keep up. Things that require courage. Things that require balls. Things that need to be done. By making me a bitch, you have freed me from the trite, sexist, bourgeois prison of "likeability." Any idiot can be liked. It takes talent to scare the crap out of people.”

“Any idiot can be liked. It takes talent to scare the crap out of people"-”

“Now, whatever you do, don't say anything, because no one must know that Liberace is gay.""Excuse me?" I said. "I'm eight. I know he's gay.”

“Michael tousled my hair and said, "Remember, no more skateboards, right?" And then this gem: "If you ever break your arm skateboarding again..." He paused, flashing me a dimpled Charles Ingalls grin, which then suddenly disappeared. "I'll break the other one.”

“You said that love could not be feigned and could not be stolen" she said passionately. "And now you say I am to be your queen. And yet you imprison me and give me no freedom. You know what it is like to be caged, It is a death. You tell me I cannot hide from you and yet you punish me for hiding.You say you do not want me to fear you and you treat me like I am a slave. Forgive me my Lord"-and here she bowed her head sadly, contrite and meek-"I don not understand why you are punishing me for something you say I cannot do. I do not understand your love, if this is the love you offer me.”

“I am not ultimately interested in writing fiction. I can't make things up. Or rather, I can only make things up about things that have already happened.”

“Who are these people sharing the street with me? What is going on in their worlds, inside their heads? Are they in love? If so, is it the kind that Mum and Dad have? Based on having things in common, like raspberry picking and a love of dogs, and Shakespeare, and long country walks? Or is it the knock-you-out, eat-you-up, set-you-on-fire kind of love that I have longed for-and avoided-all my life?”