“Art is not escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.”

“Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices?”

“When the rooms were warm, he'd call,and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,Speaking indifferently to him,Who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I know Of love's austere and lonely offices?”

“Yeah. It was like giant bubbles...you know, the kind that you used to play with as a kid? You blow bubbles through a little loop and stuff? It was like that, but only way, way bigger, stronger, and there were so many of them popping up and closing around people.”

“What is a ‘woman like you’? Saying it that way suggests you have no choice in the matter. That you’ve been cast in this role as a victim. They may want us to be victims, Alena, but we don’t have to agree to the role.”

“In science ... "discovery" can mean finding a guppy with an extra spine in its dorsal fin.”

“It's better being crazy because if you don't like the way it is here then you can have dreams. And if you don't like the dreams, then they come and give you shots and you don't feel anything anyway and you just drift around. Dead. Half-dead. Alive but like you're dead. You just drift around alive, but dead. And it all seems the same after a while.”