“Listen,” F. Jasmine said. “What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be anything else but me, and you can ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange? ”

“I am cruel and I am selfish, but this need I have inside me, this need for you and no other, is stronger than anything else I've ever encountered. I doubt two years of lockup would dull it in the slightest.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I didn’t die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn’t seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don’t feel lucky. For one thing, I’m stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn’t as awful as someone else’s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. You can’t compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn’t work. What might look like the perfect life—or even an okay life—to you might not be so okay for the person living it.”

“You are pure flame. I touch you and I ignite. I kiss you and I burn to have more. You consume me… like no other woman before you, and, I am certain, like no other ever could again.”

“That is not what I meant. Of course you belong here, because you have offered me your friendship, and friends always belong together. But friends look out for each other's welfare, and I am concerned for yours. I wish only to protect you.""It is I who must protect you!" she exclaimed, although she did not understand why she felt this so strongly. "You need protecting. I can look after myself.""None of us can look after ourselves," he said after a moment. "We all have to look after each other.”

“Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of a category. You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are. Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought. And if I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done?”