"And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat."
"I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery - air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.' "
"She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist."
"I didn't want my pictures taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why i was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full."
"I crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over my head. But even that didn't shut out the light, so I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretend it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up.
I had nothing to look forward to."
"I thought I would spend the summer reading Finnegan's Wake and writing my thesis.
The I would be way ahead when college started at the end of September, and able to enjoy my last year instead of swotting away with no makeup and stringy hair, on a diet of coffee and benzedrine, the way most of the seniors taking honours did, until they finished their thesis."
"It felt dark and safe under there, but the mattress was not heavy enough.
It needed about a ton more weight to make me sleep."
"The reason I didn't wash my clothes or my hair was because it seemed so silly.
...
It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.
It made me tired just to think of it.
I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through with it."
"The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of storeys, you might still be alive when you hit the bottom. I thought seven storeys must be a safe distance."
"The only reason i remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my head, while everything else flew out."
"If I was going to fall, I would hang on my small comforts, at least, as long as I possibly could."
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