“Each time he came he would twist my defenceless body into a different pose, as if I were his very own doll”

“It was as if she would never be whole until the secrets of the past were exposed.”

“Today is the day after my wedding. And nothing is the way I expected it to be.”

“She searched her mind for a single day when it had felt good to be alive. There must have been one, surely?”

“A radio was playing quietly. Nobody was listening. It was there to drown out the silence.”

“The quiet but inexorable breaking down of self-esteem is much more sinister - it’s violation of the soul.”

“[W]alking sometimes in a perfectly desolate plain where there have been no houses nor trees to guide me, I have been occasionally compelled to remain stationary for hours together, waiting till the rain came before continuing my journey.”