“Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.”

“I didn't begin life hating my grandmother. Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.”

“She appeared to adore Thomas's repugnance to her and to draw it out of him every chance she got as if it added delectably to her martyrdom.”

“I saw her insides.”“Her insides? She got hurt?”“Ew, no. That would have been cool though. I mean her insides, like what she was thinking on the inside of her brain.”

“I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

“She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily. I'd know her head anywhere.And what's inside it. I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy?”