“I am gone quite mad with the knowledge of accepting the overwhelming number of things I can never know, places I can never go, and people I can never be.”

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want.”

“For a second, I feel a sense of overwhelming grief: for how things change, for the fact that we can never go back. I'm not certain of anything anymore. I don't know what will happen--”

“To be quite candid — and what I am going to say now is something I have never said before, and I hope that it provokes a salutary chill — I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”

“Am I Carrie, now? I sway with the movement of the elevator. I close my eyes and try to think. I could never be Carrie. No one can. That’s the thing. Always. I could never be Carrie. I could never be Carrie. I could never be Carrie. I can feel the tears sting behind my eyes. I can never be Carrie. Now, I can’t even be Ellie.”

“I am like a leaf on a river, riding along the top of the water, not quite floating, not quite drowning. So I can't stop, and I can't control the direction I am going. I can feel the water, but I never know which way I am heading.But I might feel lucky this day and avoid the sticks and branches scratching and pulling at me. ”