Tell her happiness is just practice," he said. "If only she acted happy, she would be happy.

As he watches the sun rise, what grieves him is that he failed her. He thinks of the terror she felt. They tell him it was quick, as if that will somehow confine the horror.

It has always been on the written page that the world has come into focus for me. If I can piece all these bits of memory together with the diaries and letters and the scribbled thoughts that clutter my mind and bookshelves, then maybe I can explain what happened. Maybe the worlds I have inhabited for the past seven years will assume order and logic and wholeness on paper. Maybe I can tell my story in a way that is useful to someone else.

It's wonderful to feel desired. There's a sense of power in it, really.

She got up from the bed, knelt beside the bed, and put her forehead down on the covers. She was not practiced at prayer anymore. The only word that came to mind was "please".

Don't you see what's happened? You wanted to be in love again. To feel that feeling where a man you hardly know gazes into your eyes and seems to be the only human being who ever understood the real you.

A chronic invalid has but one thought about his identity: He doesn't want to be a sick man. The rest of the discussion seems frivolous to him-an immense privilege of the healthy. Still, I'm a novelist, and so I pursue it.

I don't buy junk. When I buy something, it's got to be perfection or I don't want it. You won't find me coming home with five cheap suits, one for each day of the week. I'd rather have one perfect suit or none.

It seemed to me that boys had a lot more fun. It was a relief. I didn't look at myself from the outside. I just lived inside my skin, looking out.