“As my future crumbled before my eyes, I grasped for the rope. My entire life's struggle was ending here, in plain view of my enemies. How was it possible? Had had I let things come to this?”

“I've lived here ... my whole life. It's where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they'll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident.”

“It always was my greatest fear to die without changing a god damn thing.”

“It’s my job really, to help you, my reader, in accepting things as real that aren’t. Most books try to get you to accept things that, at the very least, could be real – and that’s difficult enough, goodness knows – but here, in this book, nothing seems to be even trying to be real. Except, I would say, me. I’m here, I’m real. And to be honest, I’ve never been here before. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what I’m doing. In some ways, I’m afraid this is the most real story I’ve ever written.”

“My whole life has conspired to bring me to this place, and I can’t despise my whole life.”

“I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed.”

“Storytelling wasn't about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.”