“That night she admitted her compulsion to escape. She was worried that if my father drowned, or I disappeared, she would be left with nothing. By running away at least she would have the joy of knowing she was missed.”

“…that would be too much like running away, and that, she would not do. She does not run—they cannot make her—she walks.”

“It was impossible to escape her. She provided no natural break in the conversation, and she spoke with such intensity that I would have had to abruptly shout "SHUT THE FUCK UP," punch her, and then run away in order to be free.”

“It was her street, her neighborhood, her life. She knew that someday in the future it would not be hers anymore. But she would remember it, she would treasure it, she would miss it. She would hold it in her heart. She knew that someday she would look back at this very moment and miss it....Never had life seemed more beautiful and more sad.”

“I missed her smile…the way she would roll her eyes when she thought I was being ridiculous…the quiet way she almost tiptoed when she walked that gave her away as a ballerina…the fact that she could probably give me a fairly decent ass-kicking if she set her mind to it. I missed it all.I missed her.”

“In the short summer night she learned so much. She would have thought a woman would have died of shame... She felt, now, she had come to the real bedrock of her nature, and was essentially shameless. She was her sensual self, naked an unashamed. She felt a triumph, almost a vainglory. So! That was how it was! That was life! That was how onself really was! There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.”