“She was thirteen, the daughter of a bicycle mechanic, and she couldn't ride this bicycle. It fought her; it threw her; it hated her.”

“I thought of that while riding my bicycle.”

“It was almost reckless how vulnerable she allowed herself to be; you couldn't help but hate her for doing that to herself, and at the same time hate yourself for giving in to it, and underneath all of that, despite your hate for her, couldn't help but love her.”

“Last week I forgot how to ride a bicycle.”

“Everything about riding a bicycle compels you towards beauty.”

“Had she not created even him? Perhaps for that he never forgave her, but hated her and fought her secretly, and dominated her and oppressed her and kept her locked in houses and her feet bound and her waist tied, and forbade her wages and skills and learning, and widowed her when she was dead, and burned her sometimes to ashes, pretending that it was her faithfulness that did it.”