“I got myself into a tangle. I tied myself in knots. I built and I built–heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you.”

“I built and I built— heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you. You asked why I came here to Rome. I never cared about the news. I came to be in the same room as you, even if I had to build that room, fill it with people, with typewriters, the rest. I only hope you understand that the paper was for you.”

“I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.”

“If God had called me up to heaven, and told me that I was allowed to build a man to belong to me, I would have built myself a Kayden.”

“He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus. I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.”

“I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.”