“I want to clean myself like the window of a house, make myself clear for things to pass through. Flat and quiet.”

“When my grandmother touches my hair in my sleep, I feel like a lost child. There is never enough of her to comfort me.”

“And still tears never feel like enough: the rinse something away, but only the surface, not whatever is underneath.”

“I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, and I myself have been abandoned by those whom I begged to stay.”

“If I were another person, I go on, I wouldn’t want to deal with me, I don’t want to deal with me, It’s so hopeless, I want out of this life. I really do. I keep thinking that if I could just get a grip of myself, I could be all right again. I keep thinking I’m driving myself crazy, but I swear, I swear to God, I have no control. It’s so awful, It’s like some demons have taken over my mind. And nobody believes me, Everybody thinks I could be better if I wanted to. But I can’t be the old Lizzy anymore, I can’t be myself anymore, I mean, actually, I am being myself right now and it’s horrible.”

“I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights but also devote myself to God.”

“I intend to scream, shout, race the engine, call when I feel like it, throw tantrums in Bloomingdale's if I feel like it and confess intimate details about my life to complete strangers. I intend to do what I want to do and be whom I want to be and answer only to myself: that is, quite simply, the bitch philosophy...”