“I read once about a kind of fungus that grows in trees. The fungus begins to encroach on the systems that carry water and nutrients up from the roots to the branches. It disables them one by one―it crowds them out. Soon, the fungus―and only the fungus―is carrying the water, and the chemicals, and everything else the tree needs to survive. At the same time it is decaying the tree slowly from within, turning it minute by minute to rot.That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.It is hard and deep and angular, a system of blockades. It is everything and total.”

“That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.”

“This is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.”

“Like special fungus, your love will grow in strange places”

“Caring about him was like trying to love a tree stump - a cold, mean-spirited paternalistic tree stump. With fungus.”

“I've known time to stretch out like rings expanding outward over water; I've also known it to rush by with such force it leaves me dizzy. But until today I've never known it to do both at the same time. The minutes seem to swell around me, to stifle me with their sluggishness... At the same time. I'm terrified when I see how many hours have gone by... and even as each minute seems to take an hour, each hour seems to fly by in a minute.”

“I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.”