“I made the best mistakes. It was not like the sun came up or I stopped crying or I had any more power within me. It was not like all those sensual metaphors of awakening that keep you chained to hope. I still go to bed at night and hate—and hate knowing that the world's a mirror.”

“It was hard to remember in the heavy and sensual clarity of these mornings; I forgot whom I hated and who hated me. I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for me, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this.”

“I hate feeling so weak and vulnerable.I hate that I miss him.I hate that I am alone, and I always was.I hate that I made him into a superhero, he was not.I hate that he doesn't want to kiss me.I hate that every time I cry over one boy it's like crying over all of them again.”

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.”

“I hated that I felt jealous. Hated it. It's not like I'd been on my own waiting for him, just like he hadn't been waiting alone for me. We had lived, for two years. Made choices and mistakes, had good days and bad days.”

“I hated him. I hated them all. They made me hate myself even more than I already did.”