“I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.”

“I was angry all the time about the future I didn't want with people I didn't like. But I didn't know what I wanted - so what else was there to do?”

“Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?”

“I realise people exist who don't read. But it's like I knew there were people who didn't breathe or eat: I can't imagine a life like that.”

“I didn't want to be a virgin. That much I knew. I didn't want to feel like the immature prude who knew nothing about sex. I hated not knowing things. The trouble was...as much as I didn't want to be a virgin, I also didn't want to have sex.”

“Here was a man who wanted what no one had wanted before: he wanted to get to know the inner workings of the doll-like woman who was me. Karl wasn't interested in me; neither was Johnson. But Kijima's father liked me for who I was. The realization left me feeling numb. I was touched. But being touched is not the same as feeling desire. And I didn't exist without desire. If I didn't exist, then what?”