“My father hadn’t ruined me. It was impossible to ruin a person who had never been formed correctly to begin with, but I had ruined a few people of my own over the past several months.”

“I had no lock that could be picked. If anything, I was the landscape behind the door, and even on that day in the ruin, I was still only beginning to comprehend my own flora and fauna.”

“Don't talk to me about people who are nice, 'cause I've spent my whole life in ruins over people who are nice.”

“In it she told me, "Thanks a lot! I'm ruined - gloriously ruined." I nodded with sudden understanding. "that's it - that describes what has happened to me." I was ruined for life as I had known it before, but gloriously ruined!”

“I had let my digust with teaching ruin my love of literature.”

“It's not like it ruined my life, I was going to say, but then I didn't. Because it occurred to me that maybe it had ruined my life, in a kind of quiet way--a little lie, probably not so vital, insidiously separating me from everyone I loved. ”