“But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were all about following the rules.”

“I have no end of failings as a mother, but I have always followed the rules.”

“I so mixed and matched the planet that you sometimes worried I had no commitments to anything or anywhere, though you were wrong; my commitments were simply far-flung and extremely specific.”

“You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself.”

“I seem to remember even from when I was very young that when you loved someone you also hated them for making you love them, since loving someone is so incredibly humiliating.”

“You were patient, but I worried that your very patience tempted Kevin to try it.”

“I didn't put in my diaphragm' I mumbled when we were through.You stirred, 'Is it dangerous?''It's very dangerous,' I said.Indeed, just about any stranger could have turned up nine months later. We might as well have left the door unlocked.”