“All I know is I’m losing my mind,” Franny said. “I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting – it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says.”

“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.”

“Maybe I couldn’t make it. Maybe I don’t have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don’t know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I’m sick of the masquerade. I’m sick of pretending eternal youth. I’m sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I’m sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I’m sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I’m sick of the Powder Room. I’m sick of pretending that some fatuous male’s self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I’m sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I’m sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate.”

“But I’m not calm. It’s all a lie.” Quinn held Katie closer, breathing faster. “It’s just that when everybody else is screaming, somebody has to be mature and unemotional, so I have these brain-dead moments where I don’t react the way any sane human being would. I stay completely calm and ignore my feelings and compromise and make everything work again. And I’m not going to do that anymore. From now on, I’m going to be Zoe. Screw calm. Somebody else is going to have to do mature because I’m going to be selfish and get what I want.”

“I don’t think I’m special. I want you to know that,” Odile says sharply. “I don’t think I’m better than everybody else.”

“It’s like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don’t give a shit and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I’m sick of people thinking I’m difficult.”