“When Louise worried bout something, it often turned up in her art.”

“The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.”

“Louise often feels like part of her is "acting." At the same time , "there is another part 'inside' that is not connecting with the me that is talking to you," she says. When the depersonalization is at its most intense, she feels like she just doesn't exist. These experiences leave her confused about who she really is, and quite often, she feels like an "actress" or simply, "a fake.”

“It was frustrating when people loved you and took an interest in you and sometimes worried about you and personally cared what you did with yourself. Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good bout yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could clip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct and had nothing at all to give." (Lena, 194)”

“I want you to play for me,” he told her as he passed the violin back.Her elegant fingers gripped the neck of her Stradivarius as she gently pulled it up and rested it on her left shoulder. She turned her chin, so it sat perfectly in the chin rest at the base of the lower bout.“What would you like me to play?” she asked, closing her eyes.“Something you want me to hear.”

“Mphhh... What did you say Tyler?' Anna-Louise mumbles on the bed above me.I stand up, and a tame blue bird lands on my shoulder and tries to nibble my earlobe. I gently shake Anna-Louise fully awake. 'Anna-Louise, wake-up,' I say. 'Wake up--the world is alive.”