“S___ likes being around other people; she just isn't particularly comfortable talking to them. She supposes that she is some variety of voyeur, enjoying the spectacle, breathing in the atmosphere, while experiencing uneasiness when asked to become part of it. None of this makes her unhappy. The life of a wallflower, she often thinks, is not such a terrible life.”

“You give too much attention to things that make you unhappy,' Allison says. No doubt she is right. And yet attending to things that make Hannah unhappy--it's such a natural reflex. It feels so intrinsic, it feels in some ways like who she is. The unflattering observations she makes about other people, the comments that get her in trouble, aren't these truer than small talk and thank-you notes? Worse, but truer. And underneath all the decorum, isn't most everyone judgmental and disappointed? Or is it only certain people, and can she choose not to be one of them--can she choose this without also, like her mother, just giving in?”

“She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.”

“Friends and family came and went, sometimes helping her with her tears, other times making her laugh. But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live. But what was the point in living when there was no life in it? These questions went through her mind over and over until she reached the point of not wanting to wake up from her dreams--they were what felt real.Deep down, she knew it was normal to feel like this, she didn't particularly think she was losing her mind. She knew that one day she would be happy again and that this feeling would just be a distant memory. It was getting to that day that was the hard part.”

“Louise often feels like part of her is "acting." At the same time , "there is another part 'inside' that is not connecting with the me that is talking to you," she says. When the depersonalization is at its most intense, she feels like she just doesn't exist. These experiences leave her confused about who she really is, and quite often, she feels like an "actress" or simply, "a fake.”

“She had defeated loneliness by bringing to life the books that peopled her imagination and making friends of them.With devastating clarity she saw that her ability was not only a panacea for unhappiness. It was her lifeblood. Part of the very fiber of her being. And here, in Hollywood, it could be fulfilled. She didn't want to be an actress. She was one. All she had to do to be a star was to be true to herself.”