“Cathy slowly discovers the terrible childhood Dawn has had; rejected by her parents, left to fend for herself, then subjected to violent treatment by her relatives.”

“Sylvia Plath is an example of the egotistical sublime: her subject is herself, her predicament, her violent Romantic emotions,” wrote the poet Craig Raine.”

“It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.”

“Listening to Leonard, Madeleine felt impoverished by her happy childhood. She never wondered why she acted the way she did, or what effect her parents had had on her personality. Being fortunate had dulled her powers of observation.”

“She had given herself to the world in her entirety and then found nothing was left”

“That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories.”