“Several notes were missing. They had always been missing, except for two that I had levered out with a poker when three...The anticipated thrill of a missing G or an E Flat was like a good joke, told again and again, always fresh. I believe that my present feeling for silences and emptinesses dates from those sing-songs, the awaited non-note on the beat.”

“I need nothingI have everything I needI lie upon the coffina doughnut in my hand”

“The veins stood out on her angry temples like wormcasts.”

“How do you knowyou're a girl?I'm wearing a frock.And if you take it off?I get cold, so I putit back on.If I was a boy, I don't know what I'd do.”

“Finally, I was let down and joined the others at the window, to watch the sleet fall.”

“Despite everything that life had shown me, I always believed in love: I wanted someone to take me away from these simple feelings I knew.”

“But what she had always imagined were the two basic ingredients of happy adulthood, intellectual companionship and thrilling sex, are missing too.”