“The naïve girl in me had been bitch-slapped into womanhood. I’d been razed by pain, grief, loss and suffering, and honed by lust, rage and an acute awareness of my need to survive.”

“What mattered is I was different. The naive girl in me had been bitch-slapped into womanhood. ~Livvie”

“My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company.”

“If I knew beforehand that I’d need a good backhand, I’d never have taken up tennis. Or bitch slapping.”

“As a woman ravaged by intense pain and the loss of virtually all my life’s goals, I have been transformed by suffering and love. And brought to a higher place.”

“If he’d been any other man and i'd been any other girl, I’d have called the narrowing of his heavy-lidded dark eyes lust. But he was Barrons and I was Mac, and a blossoming of lust was about as likely as orchids blooming in Antarctica”