“A vast mirror hung above his desk, its gilt frame a horror of twisted vines and sharp leaves, angry looking foliage. I thought of it as Eden Lost. The first occasion I was alone in the room I stepped to the glass and touched my reflection with a finger. It was the only time I’d seen myself in a mirror, but the glass was so wavy I could have been staring into water. I was struck by how much my mouth tipped downward in a child’s pout, and I hadn’t realized I watched the world through my eyelashes. I didn’t observe myself for very long. My eyes were the same shape as my mother’s, curved like wings; watching them made me lonesome.”

“I saw myself in a piece of glass that wasn’t a mirror. Was that my doppelganger or my clone? Who was that? Who am I? Maybe if I hadn’t been acting like a reverse Peeping Tom, trying to look out into the world, this existential dilemma wouldn’t have popped up.”

“I always loved twilight: it was the only time of day I had the feeling that something important could happen. All things were more beautiful bathed in twilight, all streets, all squares, and all the people walking through them; I even had the feeling that I was a handsome young man, and I liked looking at myself in the mirror, watching myself in the shop windows as I strode along, and even when I touched my face, I felt no wrinkles at my mouth or forehead.”

“So far, in the room itself there had not been a sound. When the clock had struck ten, as it seemed to me, years ago, there came a rustling noise, from the direction of the bed. Feet stepped upon the floor,— moving towards where I was lying. It was, of course, now broad day, and I, presently, perceived that a figure, clad in some queer coloured garment, was standing at my side, looking down at me. It stooped, then knelt. My only covering was unceremoniously thrown from off me, so that I lay there in my nakedness. Fingers prodded me then and there, as if I had been some beast ready for the butcher’s stall. A face looked into mine, and, in front of me, were those dreadful eyes. Then, whether I was dead or living, I said to myself that this could be nothing human,— nothing fashioned in God’s image could wear such a shape as that. Fingers were pressed into my cheeks, they were thrust into my mouth, they touched my staring eyes, shut my eyelids, then opened them again, and— horror of horrors!— the blubber lips were pressed to mine— the soul of something evil entered into me in the guise of a kiss.”

“As I brush my long, brown hair, the girl in the mirror with blue eyes too big for her head stares back at me. Wait...I don’t have blue eyes! Then I realize I haven’t been looking into the mirror. I’ve been staring at a poster of Kristen Stewart for five minutes. My own hair is actually fine.”

“The second time I took acid, I watched myself in the mirror for nine hours. What I realized, when I stared, was that my face looked exactly the same when I cried as when I laughed. After awhile I couldn't tell which I was doing. Relief was just pain inside out.”