“imagine thatit were given back to me to bethe child who knew departure would be sweet,the boy who drew square-rigged ships, the girl who knewtruck routes from ottawa to mexico,the me who found a door in latin verseand made a map out of hexameters.”

“Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”

“Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn't need a man; be that girl who never backed down.”

“She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if…the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth.”

“I am suddenly comsumed by nostalgia for the little girl who was me, who loved the fields and believed in God, who spent winter days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew and sucking menthol cough drops, who could keep a secret.”

“As the elevator door started to close, she stood and put up one hand to wave goodbye. That’s one of those frozen memories for me, because there was something in Greta’s solemn wave that made me understand it was about something bigger. That as the elevator door eclipsed the look between us, we were really saying goodbye to the girls we used to be. Girls who knew how to play invisible mermaids, who could run through dark aisles, pretending to save the world.”