“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?”

“One thing I've learned in life is that I can speak for myself, that I can fight my own battles. I don't like anyone telling me how I'm supposed to feel or think or what I'm supposed to say.”

“I feel as if I am the eye of my own storm, still, like the mermaid, at the center of my own chaos.”

“I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am...self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests...but then I countenance the fact here at least here I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself...but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to imagined Others...I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am--so where does that put me.”

“My whole world started to tilt. I could feel it, sliding ever so slightly off center.”

“I am quite empty of feeling. I don't care the slightest bit in the world for anybody or anything except myself. But I do care for myself, and I'm going to survive in spite of them all, and I'm going to have my own success without caring the least in the world how I get it. Because I'm cleverer than they are, I'm cunninger than they are, even if I'm weak. I must build myself up proper protections, and entrench myself, and then I'm safe. I can sit inside my glass tower and feel nothing and be touched by nothing, and yet exert my power, my will, through the glass walls of my ego.”