“For as long as wimmin have had the temerity to experience feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, and deep resentment, patriarchal society has denied them these feelings, and, in fact, punished them heartily for feeling anything at all.”

“A matter, as the famous book intoned, of finding the shade of the parachute that best complemented you. But really: With no parachute at all you'd hit the pavement so hard it probably wouldn't even hurt, and you'd unleash a whole new color palate-bone, blood, muscle-in the process.”

“Why so profane, ask the bookclubbers? Because we are talking here about death, and fuck you if you don't like it: You're going to die, too. This is serious. Fuck fuck fuck.”

“It's decidedly bizzare, when the Worst Thing hppens and you find yourself still conscious, still breathing.”

“She developed a kind of disdain for her only sibling usually reserved for despotic political regimes and perpetrators of genocide.”

“All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.”

“Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject.”