“She was the reason I was a reader, and being a reader was what had made me most myself; it had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant contradictory place, and it had me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions.”

“Of course, I didn't imagine then that I could have had a real relationship with any guy. I thought that by virtue of being me I was disqualified.”

“Ordinarily, of course, I thought it best to remain inconspicuous, but the gesture had a certain irresistable theatricaility, and an inevitablility. Sometimes you can feel the pull of what other people want from you, and you sacrifice yourself, you risk seeming odd or sunsavory, to keep them entertained.”

“I couldn’t tell them about Cross, I thought. I couldn’t tell them because Dede liked him and because she wouldn’t believe or understand it, and I couldn’t tell them because I myself was unsure what there was to believe or understand. It wasn’t like he’d kissed me, or made any declarations. What could I claim? For years and years, I felt this way, not just about Cross but about other guys – if they didn’t kiss you, it didn’t mean anything. Their interest in you had been so negligible as, perhaps, to have all been in your head.”

“I have been granted the terrible privilege of deciding what would have happened with no one left to contradict me. And maybe I am absolutely wrong.”

“For months I heard whispers and though it had seemed that they were carried to me on the wind, they were really coming from inside my own head.”

“But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.”