“I told him I didn’t want to hurt him, or anyone else. I just feel that sometimes I am better company only to myself, because of what is happening in my life, than I am or would be to anyone else.”

“Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if we didn’t have to think about being boys or girls or men or women or old or young, fat or thin… if we could all just be certain we were the same. We might be bored, but the danger of life and of living would be gone.”

“Sometimes, life is about what happens before death.”

“We’re like everyone else, I guess. We promise that something is forever, when it is really only as long as it takes for us to tire of it.When she walked away, and out of the door, it was like she was leaving forever.”

“And I never felt this way with anyone else. Like I’m falling every time I’m around you, like I can’t catch my breath, and I feel alive—not just standing around and letting my life walk past me. There’s been nothing like that with anyone else.”

“I didn’t want to invade hisprivacy; I didn’t want to fight with him; I didn’t want anyone else to ever hurt him. I just wantedhim to be a child forever.” She glanced up, crying harder now. “But you can’t do that, if you’re aparent. Because part of your job is letting them grow up.”

“I can hurt myself more than anyone else can," she told her sister. "I can do it with my eyes closed.”