“Rather than feeling vindicated, I felt guilty. It seemed cruel, and all my fault, somehow. My relationship with my mother had always brought into question any sense I had of myself as a good and decent person. [p. 128]”

“I felt as if I had gotten to the point where I could no longer trust myself. I was not the same person any longer. My whole genetic makeup had somehow been altered by him and I was a brand new person, one that was completely foreign to me.”

“Though there was no sound, there was a change. The atmosphere, which had gone tense at my accusation, relaxed. I wondered how I knew this. I had a strange sensation that I was somehow receiving more than my five senses were giving me - almost a feeling that there was another sense, on the fringes, not quite harnessed. Intuition? That was almost the right word. As if any creature needed more than five senses.”

“Because I'd rather feel guilty for the rest of my life than for her to have felt a second's fear.”

“I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are agreeable to myself, or that I am not pinfully conscious of them, than be wise, and chaptious.”

“I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to my grief. It felt better, somehow, to be helpless. I didn't feel ashamed.”