“How easy I was. Like a limpet I attached myself to anything, anyone who showed me the least attention.”

“Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Lonliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it know yourself... know what you want.”

“I felt like an Israeli girl soldier, in shorts and the hot wind, sighting down the barrel of the rifle, holding the .38 with both hands. It was a strange feeling, him looking at me as I aimed. I found I couldn't quite lose myself in the target. His eyes split my attention between the C in Coke and my awareness of him watching me. And I thought, this was what it was like to be beautiful.”

“I decided that if I was never going to sell anything as long as I lived, I might as well do what I want to do 'cause then at least I would've done what I wanted to do in life. What's that worth?”

“I liked it when my mother tried to teach me things, when she paid attention. So often when I was with her, she was unreachable. Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.”

“She kissed me on the mouth. Her mouth tasted like iced coffee and cardamom, and I was overwhelmed by the taste, her hot skin and the smell of unwashed hair. I was confused, but not unwilling. I would have let her do anything to me.”

“A couple of times, I could have turned a trick. But I didn’t want to start. I knew how it would play. When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.”