“What is it that I especially find utterly unendurable? That I cannot cope with, that makes me choke and faint? Bad air! Bad air! The approach of some ill-constituted thing; that I have to smell the entrails of some ill-constituted soul!”

“At some point, hurting myself has gone past the need to be in control. It's routine now. An addiction. I cannot cope without it, and when things get bad, the need to feed the habit flares.”

“ I LOV LIFE AND WANT TO LIVE, TO CRY BUT CANNOT - I FEEL SUCH A PAIN IN MY SOUL - A PAIN WHICH FRIGHTENS ME. MY SOUL IS ILL. MY SOUL, NOT MY MIND. THE DOCTORS DO NOT UNDERSTAND MY ILLNESS.”

“Fear is the illusion that I have some control over the bad things that might happen to me.”

“I turn to Slim. Do I smell? I says. He throws me a startled look. Uh - Ohmigawd, I do. I smell bad. How bad? Go on, you can tell me. Well, he says, you don't smell as bad as some. But you don't smell as good as some neether. I knew it, I says. What'm I gonna do? Yer askin me fer advice? He shakes his head as he says, I'd remind you that I'm wearin a lady dress with no unders.”

“With my own hands, I had to construct this thing I called ‘I’ –or, rather, make the things that constituted me.”