“Now I know why women get their ears pierced. Once they've survived this ordeal of mutilation, they can face the discomforts of childbirth with equanimity.”

“She did know that once tattooed one could no longer expect to lie for all eternity in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. They wouldn't even bury women with pierced ears. A strange theory of mutilation from the people who invented cutting the skin off the pee-pee.”

“Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage - they've experienced pain and bought jewelry.”

“Once I had flesh the city could pierce with a frown- I'd bleed into sewers like rain. Men without legs on subways moved me, women with swollen feet. Now I belong to them. When I ignore them it's with the confusion of the newly damned- as if I believe I've survived.”

“Women's bodies have a near perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong.”

“I walked around Soho's street for over an hour, running into familiar faces but never once stopping to chat. It was then that I felt something discomforting and comforting all at once. I didn't want to be here, in this city, anymore.”