“It's all in her walk, a cartoon swagger. Part Jayne Mansfield, part Muhammad Ali. Men never know if it's an invitation upstairs or an invitation outside. ”

“We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be.”

“It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had.”

“When he kisses me, I cry. I explain it's not because I wish he were someone else, it's because it's such a shock to the system to be desired after feeling so completely abandoned.”

“And then, with the feather-green darkness pressed against the windows, he puts his filthy fingers on my scrubbed hope face and says, "If I kiss you, it's all over." And then he does. And then it is.”

“When you live with voices in your head, you are drawn inextricably to voices outside your head. Very often the voices work to confirm your worst suspicions. Or think of things you could never have imagined! There are only so many hours of the day to hate yourself.”

“It's like he has emotional amnesia... I think you have to accept that the person you knew isn't there at the moment. I was witness to how much he loved you. I have the photos. This isn't the person we knew. I don't recognize this person. He's shed his skin." Her heart is broken too. She has to say the thing that will give me back my life. She draws on every reserve. I see how much it hurts her and it hurts me too. I came from her joy and her pain, I lived in it and I live in it now.”