“May I never, I say, become that abnormal, merciless animal, that deformed monstrosity - a virtuous woman.”

“The old tales of China tell us that all things may grow and change. A stone may become a plant. A plant may become an animal. An animal may become a human. A human may become a god.Just so, a snake may become a woman. And we are told of one who did.”

“As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”

“Man, one may say, was never in such a completely animal condition; but he has, on the other hand, never escaped from it.”

“What’s with her?” says the painter. “She’s mad because she’s a woman,” Jon says. This is something I haven’t heard for years, not since high school. Once it was a shaming thing to say, and crushing to have it said about you, by a man. It implied oddness, deformity, sexual malfunction. I go to the living room doorway. “I’m not mad because I’m a woman,” I say. “I’m mad because you’re an asshole.”

“I've never had sex. Never wanted to. Not with a man or a woman or an animal, though my family jokes about it. And I never will. The thought of it disgusts me.”