“I burst into tears and I cry and cry until it feels as though it is not salt and water being squeezed from my eyes, but blood.”

“I don't even feel as if I'm the center of my own world, so how am I supposed to feel as though I'm the center of anyone else's?”

“...I feel as though I made a face and the wind changed, and now I have to go through life grimacing in this horrible way.”

“I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates.”

“I work it out. It is the act of reading itself I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the wold until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”

“In other words, it's one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of "This is me!”

“It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”