“Her bladder felt painfully, solidly full, as though it would burst and release not urine but the garbled prayers she was muttering.”

“To Martha it seemed that she stood outside life. The world went by her, colourless shapes on a flat pale background. Nothing had solidity or warmth. She felt numb, as though she could never be passionately alive again.”

“She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release.”

“I know a person who, though no poet, composed some verses in a very short time, which were full of feeling and admirably descriptive of her pain: they did not come from her understanding, but, in order the better to enjoy the bliss which came to her from such delectable pain, she complained of it to her God. She would have been so glad if she could have been cut to pieces, body and soul, to show what joy this pain caused her. What torments could have been set before her at such a time which she would not have found it delectable to endure for her Lord's sake?”

“She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make her internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.”

“Brod's life was a slow realizaton that the world was not for her,and that for whatever reason,she would never be happy and honest at the same time.She felt as if she were brimming,always producing and hoarding more love inside her.But there was no release.”