“What would I look like if everything that I am, no secrets, was put on paper? Would I be horrifying?”

“Maybe I am everything I knew that I would never be. I looked back at Jay and smiled.”

“I had forgotten that, and so many things. How could I put everything down on paper? It seemed impossible. No matter what, the majority of life would be left out of this story, this sliver of a version of the life I'd known. But I tried anyway.”

“Everything I have written up to now is trifling compared to that which I would like to write and would write with great pleasure...Either I am a fool and a self-conceited person, or I am a being capable of becoming a good writer; I am displeased and bored with everything now being written, while everything in my head interests, moves, and excites me--whence I draw the conclusion that no one is doing what is needed, and I alone know the secret of how it should be done. In all likelihood everyone who writes thinks that. In fact, the devil himself will be brought to his knees by these questions.”

“For one half second, I wondered what it would feel like to put my hand in the fire. What it would feel like when I burned....”

“What would I have done if my coya had been captured or killed? My mate, Sharone. The other half of everything I am. What would I have done?”