“My cynicism continuously undermines her faith in her own ability to master her moods.”

“Karen told me about an old woman who was the last surviving inhabitant of one of the Hermit Islands. She was the only one left who could speak her tribe's language, but the anthropologists didn't realize it and never bothered to learn it from her. When the old woman died, the language died with her.”

“That's why she keeps her nails long, she says, to be able to scratch and claw.”

“She protected herself by making herself believe no-one else could ever really understand her.”

“Our language has lost its ability to convey the spontaneous.”

“Lovers are not snails; they don't have to protrude from their shells and meet each other halfway. Meet me within your own self.”

“At times, feeling the wind on my brow, I went numb with horror. In my imagination I saw armies of ants and cockroaches calling to one another and scurrying toward my head, to some place under the top of my skull, where they would build new nests. There they would proliferate and eat out my thoughts, one after another, until I would become as empty as the shell of a pumpkin from which all the fruit has been scraped out.”