“Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.”

“I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.”

“A wave of blood goes up to my head, my stomach shrinks together, as if something dangerous has just missed hitting me. It's as if I've been caught stealing, or telling a lie; or as if I've heard other people talking about me, saying bad things about me, behind my back. There's the same flush of shame, of guilt and terror, and of cold disgust with myself. But I don't know where these feelings have come from, what I've done.”

“I wish I didn't have to think about you. You wanted to impress me; well, I'm not impressed, I'm disgusted...You wanted to make damn good and sure I'd never be able to turn over in bed again without feeling that body beside me, not there but tangible, like a leg that's been cut off. Gone but the place still hurts.”

“I stand in the dark, start to unbutton. Then I hear something inside my body. I've broken, something has cracked, that must be it. Noise is coming up, coming out, of the broken place, in my face. Without warning: I wasn't thinking about here or there or anywhere. If I let the noise get out into the air it will be laughter, too loud, too much of it, someone is bound to hear.”

“In theory I can do almost anything; certainly I have been told how. In practice I do as little as possible. I pretend to myself that I would be quite happy in a hermit's cave, living on gruel, if someone else would make the gruel. Gruel, like so many other things, is beyond me.”

“And then everything went on very quietly for a fortnight, says Dr. Jordan. He is reading aloud from my confession.Yes Sir, it did, I say. More or less quietly.What is everything? How did it go on?I beg your pardon, Sir?What did you do everyday?Oh, the usual, Sir, I say. I performed my duties.You will forgive me, says Dr. Jordan. Of what did those duties consist?I look at him. He is wearing a yellow cravat with small white squares, he is not making a joke. He really does not know. Men such as him do not have to clean up the messes they make, but we have to clean up our own messes, and theirs into the bargain. In that way they are like children, they do not have to think ahead, or worry about the consequences of what they do. But it's not their fault, it is only how they are brought up.”